#maybe it's just cause i feel like the arcs are so batman focused

[call-me-oracle]

barbara gordon in batman: urban legends #2 (red hood and batman - cheer pt 2)

bonus:

[ilikekidsshows]

Yanno, with how this special brought Ladybug’s shortcomings as a superhero partner to the forefront, I’m kinda upset that this is most likely going to be treated as out of continuity by the series. Because, while the conflict of the special was contained inside the special, Cat Noir’s mistake and him picking himself up again after, some of it holds true to the series proper as well. Adrien gives Ladybug so much of himself, and she gives him nothing in return. She hasn’t once supported him in a time of need. In the series this is because Adrien doesn’t feel like he can be vulnerable with her, like he doesn’t with many people in general, so he’s never showed her when he needs support. In this special, however, he did need her support and he showed it. He was crying, repeating all the things he felt were his fault. And Ladybug was silent, because she was too upset to let him know she didn’t condemn him. And she lost him because of it. Adrien left because he felt like Ladybug deserved a better partner, but to me, he left because he deserves a better partner, one who doesn’t just let him suffer all alone. In Miracle Queen, when Adrien heard Ladybug had caused Fu to be discovered by their enemies, he supported her without question. Now Marinette was put in the same situation with her partner having made a costly mistake and she condemned him instead.

In the finale of Gravity Falls, Stanley Pines loses his memory and the series creator has said that, while his estranged twin brother would have deserved not to have his brother remember him again after he treated Stan so poorly, the main characters of the series didn’t deserve to have their great uncle not remember them again, and that was why Stan’s memories were ultimately restored. I feel like the same is true in this special: Ladybug deserved to lose the partner she never supports or shows her care towards, but Plagg didn’t deserve to lose the best Cat Noir he’d ever had. Everything Plagg did wrong in this special he did because he loves Adrien and misjudged. Marinette treated Cat Noir poorly because, when it comes to their partnership, only her feelings matter. This also fits in with the start of the special, where Luka, another boy Marinette uses one-sidedly for her own emotional comfort, says he hopes Marinette finds clarity on her trip. And Marinette doesn’t think of Luka once during the trip. She learned nothing about her relationship with Luka, just like she seemingly learned nothing about her relationship with Cat Noir. I didn’t even need her to apologise, because I’ve never felt like these two have needed to apologise for their feelings before, their relationship can handle the things they say to each other in anger, but if she’d just said something like “I’ll never let you go again” to Cat Noir, I would know she’d learned just how important Cat Noir is to her. Then again, maybe that’s what Uncanny’s recording is meant to serve as, as that acknowledgement of her partner’s worth and importance. “I can’t do this without him”. I’d just have preferred if the resolution was Marinette wanting Cat Noir, not that she needed him, because wanting someone is a choice and Marinette needs to take some responsibility of her own life for a change instead of acting like a spectator.

Now, for the new characters, since they were the reason this special was set in New York. Most of them were pretty bland, and I know them only because I know the characters they were based on. I’ve seen Batman and Robin bicker over Robin desiring independence as many times as those characters have been adapted or copied, and I’ve seen Superman’s World of Cardboard Speech as many times as I’ve rewatched the finale of Justice League Unlimited (which is a lot). Aeon/Uncanny is the only original character among the main four we get introduced to, even Techno-Pirate is an downgraded Brainiac clone combined with some Doctor Octopus. But Aeon is pretty neat, I did like the gray area of whether or not she’s just too kind or if she’s helpful because she was built that way. We did get a confirmation that it was the former when she inspired Jessica to go against their mothers. Even so, she doesn’t have much of her own arc going on in the special, which is kind of wasting the only truly original character. As I said, Jessica’s fight for independence is one every Robin and Robin clone goes through, but the special focused on it anyway, because she’s the one who ends up with a Miraculous.

I also have to say that the world of the movie is a bit of a mixed bag as well. It was neat to see a science fantasy world like the Miraculous New York, that has truly been changed by the high profile presence of heroes, but it feels pretty off-beat with the world in the show proper. The myth arc around the Miraculous revolves around the era of no heroes, which has been going on between the temple burning down and present day. The fact that the US of this world is crawling with heroes kinda takes away from that. I know why they chose to go that route: American comics are the broadest and most well-known form of superhero media, so having the central hub of heroic activity be the US was a nod to that. However, I do like the implication that the shiny version of New York in the special is because of hero influence. It makes me feel like the shiny vision of Paris Marinette saw in Bunnix’s Burrow might not in fact be some distant future, but the future of the show’s Paris, that will be brought about by the Miraculous heroes, like the Crystal Tokyo of Sailor Moon.

[autisticcassandracain]

OK so. The treatment of the We Are Robin gang in Batman Secret Files: The Signal #1. 

TL;DR: It’s bad and a logical conclusion of the treatment of the gang post-We Are Robin, which as been going steadily downhill.

We Are Robin took great care to develop its team as much as possible; while it showed clear bias towards some select members (mostly Riko and to a lesser extent Izzy), everyone got their own arc and conflicts. None of the characters felt like they existed just to prop one of them up, and all of them felt like they have had lives and stories well before they were introduced on page. Basically: they felt like people.

Duke is the only character who has maintained the spotlight post-We Are Robin, and apparently, writers have taken this as a sign that they should character massacre everyone else. To my knowledge, the first major role post-WAR for any of the former Robin Collective members was Batman & The Signal, with Izzy and Riko, and both of them were shadows of their former selves in that, to the point that, if Duke’s character hadn’t been written with clear knowledge of We Are Robin, I would’ve said that the author just straight up hadn’t read it. 

Riko’s characterization in Batman & The Signal is especially abysmal. Riko is portrayed as petty and childish, and overly focused on The Mission(TM) (aka crimefighting), telling Izzy that being Duke’s girlfriend is ‘distracting’ him from The Mission. This makes no sense with her previous characterization; while Riko obviously took being a vigilante seriously, she was portrayed as a dreamer, as well. I’d have to re-read both We Are Robin and Batman & The Signal to give on in-depth analysis on why I think her character is misrepresented in the latter (which I won’t do right now bc it’s Very Late for me), but to my reading, Riko in We Are Robin is quite a compassionate character, and would be unlikely to think that ‘relationships make you soft’ like she seems to in Batman & The Signal. In fact, I’d argue that she’d be infinitely more likely to consider relationships a strength, especially due to her experiences in the We Are Robin team. That, and also, she’s heavily implied to have a crush on Duke and be jealous of Izzy in We Are Robin, so she’s clearly not against Duke having a relationship. Maybe it was intended as an extension of her earlier jelousy, but then, again, she’s not that petty and childish.

Izzy has also been a shadow of her former self for a while now. While I think her characterization wasn’t quite as bad as Riko’s in Batman & The Signal, it lacked any real personality; it feels like you could swap Izzy with any random girl from the street and it would stay essentially the same. Gone are the complex family issues Izzy dealt with in We Are Robin. Her entire character in both Batman & the Signal and now Batman Secret Files: The Signal seems to be ‘Duke’s girlfriend’. Also, she was grossly whitewashed in Batman & The Signal, and while she looks better in Batman Secret Files, she’s still not anywhere close to her original design. If you hadn’t told me that was Izzy I wouldn’t have known by looking at her.

Batman Secret Files: The Signal finally delves into what happened to the rest of the We Are Robin gang after Duke got recruited by Batman, which is a fantastic concept and something I’ve been wondering about! Unfortunately, it’s clearly a transparent excuse to cause problems for Duke. 

Dre’s characterization has little in common with what he was like in We Are Robin, and Jax straight up getting put away in Juvie Arkham is a disgrace to his character. If he needed to be a vigilante that bad, he could just??? Be one??? Like I’m sure it’d be harder without Batman/Alfred’s help, but he’s already. Done that. Like he’s already shown that he’s perfectly willing to make his own vigilante persona. Why wouldn’t he just. Do that. It makes no sense!!! No sense at all!!! Except if it is to guilt-trip Duke and provide problems for him, as well as a thin excuse to put Dre and the rest of the We Are Robin gang in an antagonistic role.

Poor Riko is the one whose character assassination is the worst. First of, no clue wtf is up with her powers, I’m assuming I either missed an obvious explenation bc I’m tired, or that it’ll get explained later, and frankly it’s the least of my problems. Riko being resentful of Duke for getting picked by Batman makes NO fucking sense, considering, oh, I don’t know, Riko’s whole entire fucking character in Batman & The Signal. Why would she be resentful of Duke for ‘abandoning’ the We Are Robin gang, but then help him as the Signal??? Why would she go so far as to scold Izzy for having a relationship with Duke???? Riko in Batman & The Signal seemed proud of Duke for having ‘graduated’ (her literal words), not resentful!!! None of this makes any sense with either her We Are Robin character, who was a kind, eccentric dreamer, or the hardass focused-on-the-mission Riko presented in Batman & The Signal. Neither would blame Duke for stuff that’s objectively not his fault, and even if she was resentful of him, she wouldn’t outright fight or attack him over it!! What the hell!!!

This is scattered and not as thought out as it probably should be because, again, I’d have to do some rereads and I’m also super tired right now, but it’s extremely clear that Batman Secret Files: The Signal has, at least so far, absolutely no interest in examining the We Are Robin gang as their own characters. Rather, they are being used to prop up Duke and the plot. This is a massive insult to both their own characters and Duke, since Duke doesn’t need to have his friends reduced to props to have interesting interactions with them. We Are Robin proved that these people work as a team, and that while not all of them might get along that well, they are a family. Duke’s interactions with them are infinitely more interesting if they’re allowed to be their own characters and have a life outside of Duke. That’s usually how character interactions work. Wild, I know.

Stop destroying the characters of the We Are Robin gang!!! Just let them be good characters!!! Damn!!!!

[captainshazamerica]

🎪 titans spoilers

Tim is too well mannered and smart to be associated with the titans they're a literal bunch of toddlers although donna felt like an old lady being called miss troy and ma'am (I'm 23 an I love being called ma'am my brains like who me I'm an adult cool) 😅 gar and tim are prob gonna bond over being the only titans capable of rational thought 😅 The train was quite cool tbh yo how long have people been on that train cuz that one lady looked very 1920s to me

HANK HALL YOU BEAUTIFUL PRECIOUS ANGEL I knew he wasn't gonna make it out of there but my dumb brain held out a smidge of hope Hank is always in protector mode and always concerned about saving the children he tries to help jason and boom dead he tries to help tim and oh no still dead dang it hank, when donna was like oh no dawns gotta be so upset and hanks like yeah she better be 😅 donna wanted to stay and had to leave and hank wanted to leave and had to stay 😢 donna and hank talking about jason and hes like that little fcker blew me up! I know he talked about revenge on jason and I do think that if he got back he would be focused on stopping jason but I also think over a little time he'd forgive him and they'd kinda be buddies again and he'd help him with the drug problem also hank should get to kick crane in the face cuz yeah. Of course hank be driving around the after life blasting living on a prayer and he manages to find a car and a hotel I'm so happy he's with his brother now tho they gonna be kickn ass in the after life hanks basically some type of afterlife guardian now so I'm taking that as he's literally an angel 👼

Maybe hank donna and tim all had the good luck to find each other because of the ritual thingy they were tryna do at themyscira oh my gosh rachel is too funny her idea of themyscira punishment was being made to fight a shark or getting thrown in a pit 😂 that lady tho was that hippolyta and she saying her daughter being dead and earlier donna said to hank it's not like I died stopping an asteriod I died at a carnival so am I connecting stuff that ain't there or did Diana get killed stopping an asteriod? Ahem DONNA WITH THAT SWORD THO why is she so cool can she have a sword on team titans pls now

Okay but honestly somebody please please please help bruce what the heck dick I get he's got a lot to deal with but he could contact bruce now and again and I dunno maybe make him aware that jason is not dead!!! I don't even know if bruce knows or not Although I do think it is interesting character wise that when he broke his no killing rule he ended up turning on himself I really hope they don't just blow past his grief like someone please maybe donna talk to bruce please I was sitting getting so annoyed like bruce spends his whole life as batman and trying to help gotham and save people and there's no one there to save him and then donna swoops in donna I love you

Hank trying to use the power of his imagination to produce a weapon and he ends up with nightwings wingdings 😅😅😅 that was so hilarious to me p.s for that ask game the other day you asked who my fav legends was it's Zari Tomaz (theres two zaris but I've just got a softer spot for the first one) 💕💕💕

also dc should do a really cool back and white noir movie and a scarecrow movie like the way they did that joker movie would be dope too (it would also be intensely cool if they did a dc black label psychoanalytical exploration of Dr Jonathan Crane leading into Scarecrow stories because honestly I think he's one of thier more frightening villians cuz yeah if joker comes to mess you up it won't be a fun time but at least whatever he does to you he's not going to achieve locking you inside your own mind and there's a chance batman or someone will save you but with scarecrow if he comes to mess you up there's a high chance that he'll screw your brain up that much that you literally get trapped in your own mind and like how is anyone gonna be able to get you out of that also the clinical medical-ness would be a touch extra frightening cuz he can mess up with precision whereas joker will wreck you anyway he can but he's not gonna be able to be so precise in what he's doing sorry for the rant but they have such cool characters and so much potential to do stuff with them like ahhh )

Omg I just realized I never replied to your previous titans ask ahhhh I am so sorry!!!! I love getting your asks!!!!

LMAO, u right, Tim IS waaayy too good and pure and smart for the titans ahahaha. Protect him ahhh. I would die for him omg, I absolutely LOVE how they are doing him and how Jay is portraying him omg its near perfect.

Ahahaha, thats so funny xD people called me Ma’am when I worked at Disney world and it always freaked me out xD Especially cause I look so much younger than I am xD It is nice but weird being considered an adult ahahaha

True, Gar and Tim are the only ones with braincells omg xD I feel like they will get along really well awwww.

Omg I thought that one lady on the train looked like she was from the 20’s too!

Right! Hank has grown on me sooo much, like I didn’t really like him 1st season, was indifferent 2nd season, and like him a lot this season. Oh my dumb butt def didn’t think/occur to me that he wouldn’t get out tbh xD I think it works out for his arc though, especially with him and OG kicking butt together there, that was so cute and sweet and perfect. Tho I do want resolution between him and jason but i guess that isn’t gonna happen :(

Huh, interesting about the Diana theory, I never thought of that but you right, I can see that/it makes sense!

Omg I couldn’t handle donna pulling a sword while hank got freaking Robin throw stars and nunchunks that he immediately got hit in the face with xD That was too freaking funny “I was defiantly NOT thinking about Grayson” xD lmaooooo

Dude, this Bruce is so freaking erratic omg. Gosh, I really hope Dick can help him and we get some father son bonding cause my gosh Bruce has me STRESSED this season omg, God bless Donna Troy. I truly thought he was gonna die there! Not even saying goodbye to Dick, smh!

Huh, Ive never heard of Zari Tomaz, Ill have to look her up!

BRO A BLACK AND WHITE SCARECROW MOVIE WOULD BE SO FREAKING GOOD OMGGGGGG. Pleasseeee DC! Gosh, I would KILL for a “psychoanalytical exploration of Dr Jonathan Crane leading into Scarecrow story”, omg, gosh that would be PERFECT! Crane is SUCH an underrated and underused villain! And omg dont apologize cause like same and i love seeing your analysis and rants!!

[itzagothamcitysiren]

There’s Only Us Left Now

I’m so excited to finally post this and expand the Batfamily!!!! I really love writing Tim and he just needs more love than he gets. 

This arc is heavily inspired by the song Sidekick by Rancid. I don’t think the song was meant to be about Tim (seeing as the  singers name is also Tim) but like, it’s about Tim lol.  I love punk rock and Rancid is one of my favorite bands. Their song Sidekick has always been a favorite because this is literally the lyrics to the chorus “I had a dream I was a vigilante's side kick/ My name is Tim, I'm a lesser-known character/I had a dream I was a vigilante's side kick/Fighting crime in the streets together” 

So like, you see my point. This song is about Tim lol. Rancid is a really good band and you should totally go out and check out there song. The link for it is here! 

I Had a Dream I Was a Vigilante's Side Kick pt. 1

           Halley Wilson would never be the first to admit it out loud but there were moments in her life where she wished she had never stopped playing dress up; moments where she wished she had never stopped pretending to be a hero. Looking back at the long nights spent in costume, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, Halley wondered if that was what little kids felt like when they were children playing make believe. And she now wondered if the feelings of fondness but almost embarrassment brought by those memories were average side effects people caught when growing up and looked back at their childhood?

           Her breath hitched in her throat as she pondered the idea. Her eyes looked around the busy but hush room she found herself in. She was uncertain, feeling the feeling she hadn’t in years start to build up and bubble inside of herself. She wanted to cave into herself and disappear. She couldn’t really compare her time as the vigilante Nightshade to simple child’s play. Trying to do so was childish in itself.  

           Halley’s eyes flickered back down to the screen of her laptop, the document still not nearly as full as she had hoped it would be at this point. She grunted, wishing her mind wasn’t so randomly out of sorts and could actually focus on the task at hand. Even if it had been two years since her boyfriend’s death, she was just asking for it by moving back to Gotham. She should’ve known that the past would’ve caught up to her eventually and there was no true escape. She thought that she could live in the city as a normal civilian but who was she kidding?

           There was no such thing as a normal civilian in Gotham City, she laughed to herself as she blew a strand of brown hair out of her face and biting down on her lip.

           Her eyes trailed but up from the screen and to the girl sitting across from her. The girl, her best friend, Sam, was still completely oblivious that Halley was on high alert as they sat in a comfortable booth towards the center wall. School papers and textbooks littered the table accompanying half-finished coffees and barely touched sandwiches.

           Just as Sam hadn’t picked up on Halley’s current state and she also hadn’t picked up on the complete reversal of personality between the two girls.  Sam was dead set on finishing what they had come here to do having been the one who insisted on coming her to begin with. The dark skinned girl was dead set on finishing her mid-term paper and long forgot about the food after a few bits and only chugging down the now cold liquid to fuel her brain.  

           The paper was due sooner than she liked. Sam knew she had once had plenty of time to finish it but now was forced to cram it all in a matter of a couple of days on top of all her other classwork. She knew that the anxiety she felt now was no one’s fault but her own. She was easily distracted and there was just something about the setting of a coffee shop that made her focus.

           Her phone, which now rest guarded in Halley’s pocket, was the number one villain in her escapades in writing this damned paper. She was self-indulgent and couldn’t stop herself from picking it up and checking on the world if it was in site of her. And then there was also trying to do schoolwork in their dorm. How could one focus when there was a TV that could be turned on and watched? Or all the other things that weren’t so boring that she could do inside? Even the school library couldn’t get her in the right mindset to focus.  

           But here she was completely emerged in her laptop, writing word after word, paragraph after paragraph; she’d be done by the end of the day possibly if she kept this up. It was the complete opposite of her normal self but she wasn’t complaining. She was too focused to even think about complaining or to notice Halley’s matching state of food and drink.

              Halley look up again and into the bustling café. Her eyes carefully looked back to the spot in the far back corner that had been the cause of her distracted being. Her eyes didn’t linger long as her instincts and years of training knew better than to. But even with the quick glance there was no denying it. She was completely aware why her paper was still left untouched for nearly twenty minutes now. There was no denying the fact that they were being watched and that they were being followed.

           Halley was not only mad at this fact but was also mad at the fact that she allowed someone to get the jump on her. If she hadn’t given up on her training, if she had someone like Bruce who kept her on her toes, maybe she would’ve caught him sooner. The last two years had completely relaxed her skills and senses. She had given up on that life and now she was facing the consequences of being indubitably out of practice.

            Her eyes once again turned back to her screen as she now thought about what to do next. She should be focusing on her paper, being in the same boat as Sam with the due date approaching fast. She planned to finish the rest of it today, having already done a giant chunk of it throughout the term but of course her luck said otherwise. Maybe her exhaustion from staying up until the sun shined to get all her work done had finally gotten to her. She could blame that on being so late on the draw when it came to noticing the figure sitting across the café suspiciously peering over their book and staring directly their way.

           Halley was not only disappointed in herself for not noticing him right away because whoever it this was wasn’t even that great at being inconspicuous. She remembered seeing him standing a little to close as the two girl first made their orders up at the counter. She remembered him only ordering a water but then waiting near them as they waited for theirs. She also remembered him waiting for them to sit first before taking the back booth that had a clear view of theirs. But it was like when someone said something and it just went in one ear and right out the other.

           It didn’t fully process to her until they’d been in the café for two hours and Halley had gotten up from their table to refill her coffee. She walked by the booth and it all clicked at the site of the water bottle being untouched. She didn’t know what was worse: that it had taken so long for her to catch him or that she had been played by a kid.

           It’d been about an hour now since she’d clued in. She spared the kid in the corner another look still trying to see if she recognized him from somewhere, anywhere, but she had no clue who this kid was. This time before she could look away their eyes meet. She let her eyes narrow, not showing the inner panic she felt whereas the boy’s eyes went wide before scrambling down to look at his book. Her lips formed a thin line at this horrible attempt at spying, scoffing to herself.

           Letting out a drawn out sigh she closed her laptop and finally earned Sam’s attention. The girl frowned and asked if she was okay. Halley shrugged, grabbing her coffee cup and stating that she needed another refill. Sam shrugged before going back to work.

           She had a lot more work than Halley had and couldn’t afford for Halley’s current predicament get in the way of it. Halley was proud, Sam hadn’t asked for her phone once since entering the café and sitting down. Sam was going to school for psychology and was trying to get into an internship program next year. Halley had questioned her or more so tried to convince her not too since the internship would be at Arkham. Sam was a great friend but she was naïve and had no idea what she was getting into. She swore it wouldn’t happen to her when Halley brought up the fate of the one notable Harley Quinn but Halley was still unsure and concerned.

           Halley stood up again but this time eyed the boy directly as she walked past his eyeline. He seemingly cowered into his seat as if it would make him invisible. Halley raised an eyebrow at him, scanning over his table as she slowly walked past it. His textbook was shielding a notebook. Halley couldn’t get the greatest look but noted it was covered in scribbles and highlights. One statement did stick out to her and it made her nearly drop her coffee cup.

           Bruce Wayne is Batman.

           This time with more pep in her step she forgot about the refill and quickly made her way back to her table. She began to gather her items, unplugging her laptop and shoving it in her bag. Sam looked up from her own laptop, puzzled.

           “We need to leave,” Halley said, her voice stern.

           “But we were-,”

           “Sam.” Halley’s voice cut her off, glaring at her.

           She stopped herself, not wanting to seem like the kid got her worked up but he did. Who was he? How did he know that Bruce was Batman? And did that mean that he knew who she was?

           Fuck, she thought feeling a lump in her throat. She never told Sam about her past. She had never told any of her friends that weren’t heroes themselves either. Fuck, she repeated to herself harshly. She had never wanted the two worlds to collide. Backtracking, she shook her head at Sam.

           “Actually, you stay. I need to go.” Halley said, slinging her backpack over her shoulders and slipped Sam’s phone out of her pocket, leaving it on the table.

           “What? Why? Are you okay?” Sam asked, her face no longer puzzled but concerned as she reached for the phone.

           “I’m fine- I just forgot something and I need to go.” Halley assured even if she was vague. She began to walk away from the table, knowing for a fact that the kid would soon follow her.  She gave Sam a slight wave. “I’ll see you tonight!”

           Within moments she was out into the streets of Gotham, hearing the door to the café close behind her only to open again a few moments after her. She peered over her shoulder, letting her hair hide the majority of her face and saw the boy following her. She quickened her pace unsure of where she should go. He was kid, she could just confront him but again, she had also been a kid once and spent her childhood killing men more than twice her age.

           No, he’d just worry, she decided when she thought about calling Dick. But was there a reason to be worried?

           Deciding that she was more than capable to handle herself she took matters in her own hands. She stopped her step, whipping around to confront the boy. Her eyes widened and scanned the area. He was gone. He had just been there and now he was gone. She turned forward, looking around again and saw no sight of him. People walked past her, staring at her like a crazy person as she looked clearly distressed and insane as her face contorted and scrunched up. She looked up at rooftops and into the alleyways nearby feeling exposed and paranoid.

           Shaking her head, she went back into a steady pace heading back to campus. If he knew who she was then he knew where she went to school; where she lived. She knew she should call Bruce after seeing what she saw in the notebook or call Dick at least. But she found herself unable to and she found it haunting her for the days to follow.

           She couldn’t focus in class, always looking over her shoulder and on edge. She had to ask her teacher for an extension, her paper being that last thing on her mind. She knew it was irresponsible and she knew she should tell someone but Dick was off with the Titans and Bruce’s number was still so daunting when her thumb hovered over it when she was alone in her room.

           A week had passed and the boy hadn’t shown himself again causing Halley too relax but only by an inch. Maybe she had gone crazy? Maybe she imagined it?

           No, she saw what she saw in that notebook. The stupid kid highlighted it and circled it for Christ’s sake.  Whoever he worked for didn’t train him well or long enough; he was a nuance at spy stuff compared to her at that age. But he still managed to unnerve her especially when after a week he decided to show himself again.  

           She had gotten an email from her communications teacher asking her to come to her office after the end of classes. She had wanted to discuss her application the internship at the Gotham Gazette she was applying for. Halley thought nothing of it having known that Miss Parsons did want to have a meeting with her soon to discuss it so she didn’t hesitate to head straight to her office after her last class.

           Her mind was frantic as she looked through her folder to make sure she had all her articles and papers lined up that she wanted to submit for the internship. Picking her eyes up as she rounded the corner and reached the office’s door, she knocked. She heard a muffled reply, the voice sounding a lot deeper than the usual perky teacher. She paused as she was now cautious as she felt herself going on alert. Narrowing her eyes she closed her folder and placed her hand on the doorknob.

           The door slowly opened and the former assassin turned vigilante peered into the room. Her eyes widened and her mouth agape as she stared at the person sitting at the desk. It sure as hell wasn’t Professor Parsons. Her face changed from shock to anger as she turned her gaze into a glare. She slammed the door shut.

           The boy who had been haunting her mind all week sat where Miss Parsons should be sitting. Halley crossed her arms against her chest as the boy simply smiled with his lips pressed firmly together, bringing his hand up to give her an awkward wave. Halley narrowed her eyes tighter at him, noting how he was wearing a Gotham Academy uniform. He looked at her cautiously but still had some trace of smugness showing in his facial expression as if he was proud of himself for catching her off guard again.

           “I’m Tim Drake.” He introduced, outreaching his hand over the desk for her to shake. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

[thattimdrakeguy]

Young Justice #10 review - How not to change a character’s identity.

This is finally the issue were Tim Drake becomes “The Drake” (or maybe just “Drake”), and honestly, it’s just lazy as could be. People were already fearing the issue, and it’s actually kind of worse than expected.

They made every bad choice they could’ve.

It is genuinely horribly done.

Most times when a character changes their identity it means something to that character. It’s a defining moment in their character evolution, and the name actually means something to that character.

Nightwing came from Dick Grayson trying to find himself as he grew up. Gaining the name from a trusted friend who told him a story from his home-world, that helped give Dick Grayson inspiration.

The Red Hood came from Jason Todd literally getting killed by Joker, a person that formerly went by the Red Hood. The name was practically a taunt, but an emotionally charged one that was connected to Jason’s story.

With this name  and costume change, it means NOTHING.

They don’t even explain where the suit comes from. He just shows up in it, and unless I missed it, no one even acts like anythings different, or brings up the costume at all.

Previously I just assumed the costume would spawn from a reasoning that had something to do with this Earth. To actually give a reason for it.

Like how a gang was insulting Tim’s colors.

But that gang that randomly attacked Tim in issue 8 went no where. Making the inclusion of them almost pointless besides world building, but in their defense, world building is important.

I have no idea why Tim thought it was important to change his costume, considering Earth 3 Drake pretty much wears a normal Robin costume.

Making the change in costume even more pointless and meaningless.

Costumes are meant to say something about the character in some shape or form. This costume has no introduction, no one brings it up, and it’s quality alone is shoddy. The colors stand for boring, and dull, in a few panels the red in it comes off almost as clashing, and the lack of any character-based details makes it terrible.

In the most objective way to consider the costume, even ignoring how Tim only wanted to be Robin, this costume was horribly made on the standards set by what costumes are supposed to do.

Costumes are suppose to tell you something about the character.

Tim’s last costume showed he was a boyish, tech based, ninja. Due to character details like short sleeves, built in tech, and ninja toes. Those details showed exactly what his character is, but this new one doesn’t come off like that. The new costume says absolutely nothing.

The logic of Tim choosing the new name is also completely horrible. He has no reason to change his name. Bart just started saying he should change his name to “Drake”. Why? I don’t think he actually says.

Why would Tim want to change his name to match someone who wants to kill him and is evil? Logically, he shouldn’t.

Why would Tim want to change his name just because Bart told him to? Logically, he shouldn’t.

Why would Tim want to change his name while on an alternate Earth? Logically, he shouldn’t.

Why would Tim want to change his name at all considering his character? Logically, he shouldn’t.

Tim Drake’s character always said that if he stopped being Robin, he would stop being a hero. That only changed when he got kicked from the role and felt he still had to save Bruce.

So now that he’s Robin again, why would he leave that role? He finally got back to being Robin like how he wanted, which actually felt good, but they never even explained why he was Robin again. In fact they implied he was still Red Robin, despite all the marketing and character’s saying he was Robin. Causing a massive inconsistency with just that.

It’s just plain out of character for him to change his name, and one of the biggest flaws you can ever make when writing a story of any kind is having one of your characters, especially one of the main characters, act out of character.

The name as well, while using the characters’ own logic, is out of character.

Tim Drake was always told to keep his secret identity hidden from EVERYONE. Even Barbara Gordon didn’t know Tim’s name until Batman told her (although that was mostly because Tim thought it was cool Babs knew Superman’s real name but not his).

In 90s Robin there was an issue were Stephanie Brown as the Spoiler comes close to finding out Tim’s identity. If Tim Drake went by the superhero name “Drake” and she cared enough to search harder, it would only make it that much easier to find out what his real name is.

You could say that the name is so dumb that’s why it’s so great, because anyone trying to figure out their identities wouldn’t expect them to be that dumb, but when the Bat-Family is so protective of their identities, why would they ever take the risk? That’s out of character.

This isn’t the only way this issue was lazy either. This issue constantly uses singular panel pages, as if they’re just trying to fill up space.

There are 4 entire pages dedicated to just one panel. In a 22 page comic, that means there’s only 18 or so pages that don’t go to mostly waste.

When you have a page like that, it’s suppose to be exciting. The first issue of Wonder Comics Young Justice used them excellently, but also, they had 44 pages I believe. So they worked well with the pages they had to tell the story.

In this issue they just overused them, like they were just getting lazy. It feels like a comic that was written during a hangover. Something Bendis might’ve done last minute when he realized he forgot to write the script.

Regardless if that’s not the case, that’s what it feels like.

The dialogue by itself isn’t much either. Mostly feeling rushed as could be, or only generic funny moments.

This is an issue, written of the quality of a comic that knows it’s going to be cancelled. I don’t think that’s the literal case for Young Justice, but that’s the vibe it gives off. It’s written so lazily, like it knows there’s no point, but it’ll use cheap publicity stunts like changing a character’s identity to get any sort of attention it can get.

However one thing the issue does really well, is establish why Jinny sticks out and is important.

It actually makes me want to read a Jinny Hex solo adventure, because Bendis seems much more interested in her than the rest of the team.

Like I love this snarky, queer, magically teched out, cowgirl.

I’ve never been more disappointed by a comic in general in my entire life though.

The first issue of this series capped off like the original series never ended it. It felt right at home, from the art style, the costumes, the writing, the energy, the fast pace. They really captured the magic of Young Justice. That first issue felt so genuine.

In this: the art style was changed due to there being a new and unfitting artist, they’re already changing the costumes to stuff much blander, the writing has become forced and rushed, the energy is zapped, and the pacing is so bizarre because of the constant usage of single pages.

If you want spoilers on the only events in the current day Earth 3 story, here you go: They fight Earth 3 Young Justice (Young $#@%ers? I guess.), Jinny finally uses her magical items, they win, they go back home.

In the flashback story of Jinny: She gets cheated on, we find out she’s a natural hero, we get a sense of her family’s history, and we finally learn more about the mystery of the chest.

There’s so much more character building involved, and she gets to feel like a real fully fleshed out person because of that.

--

If you wanna see the best bit of character usage in the main story, and I’m not being sarcastic when I say I like this part. Is this:

As simple as it is, it uses Tim’s character and the world around him to make a simple moment actually be pretty funny, because it uses the basics of character writing.

Compared to the rest of the Earth 3 story’s over-usage of cheap generic dialogue that anyone could say, and while you could argue anyone could say “Noooo... thank you.” like Tim did in the above panel, it works best with Tim because he’s already been shown as the most awkward, yet moralistic member of the team.

It actually uses his character.

--

I think the above panel is a good showing at the weird choice Bendis has made.

Earth 3 Steph is a more fleshed out character with a purpose than pretty much the entire Young Justice team in this story. When this is only the second story in this run of Young Justice.

Shouldn’t it be more important to keep fleshing out and focusing on the team itself? 

It doesn’t even feel like this is the first time these characters been together in a long time. They act as if they never been separated. Conner being stranded on Gemworld were he helped raise a kid doesn’t feel like it ever happened anymore. It affected nothing. It feels ignored. It makes the comic feel disjointed just from the last story arc.

Young Justice’s dialogue is almost entirely generic. Practically anyone could say what they have, and it would work just as well. There’s no character put into them, besides maybe Bart being immature and mouthy, but the whole team besides possibly Tim when he has his brain cell on is pretty immature and mouthy, and even then, Tim isn’t Captain of maturity, he mostly just forces himself to be because he felt obligated to be leader, he’s still a doofus kid.

--

An issue should never be written as badly as the Earth 3 story in this.

While the Jinny Hex story is actually really well-written as far as character building is concerned, the Earth 3 story is bottom of the barrel as far as quality goes, and that’s the story that actually has the whole team involved.

Bad dialogue, horrible out of character identity change, bad usage of page space, bizarre pacing, lack of story that actually feels worth paying attention too

This issue would personally be given a 3/10, and that 3 only comes from Jinny’s story being quite well written as a character piece.

[nothingofnotereally]

Unpacking Rebirth!Talia’s Upbringing

Okay so…. Can we talk about Rebirth Talia al Ghul? People who aren’t familiar with her history, her almost 50 year history at this point, and more importantly aren’t familiar with it in depth often have no idea why it is that Talia fans think that her treatment post Morrison, but even moreso post-Rebirth, is a radical rebranding of the character they’ve known for so long.   And I could talk about that, and maybe one day I will, but today I’m going to talk about something different, but related.

I’m going to talk about Talia’s background in Rebirth, how it accounts for her being a dramatically different character than she was in her classic form and whether she’s still salvageable as anything other than a mustache-twirler.

I. The Demon’s Daughter

Let’s be clear: the little we know of Talia’s rebirth childhood is absolutely horrific.  Pure nightmare fuel.  While their traditional dynamic was troubling and problematic, it was also loving in its way, and Ra’s was controlling of her, while also protective of her.  Now, instead, we have this:

This issue has been out for a while, but I haven’t seen anyone really unpack what it is Talia is saying here, because we’re all focused on the stupid swordfight with Selina. But look at what it is Talia is saying and what it means about her upbringing.

Talia is saying that, basically since she was a toddler, she has been physically abused, and forced to fight, by her centuries old swordmaster father.  In fact, her very first memory is bleeding from wounds caused by her father.  From then on, her life is a fight to survive against her own father, which I’m guessing was pretty damn difficult especially when she was an actual child.  And often, when she loses?

She dies.  Or rather, she is murdered.  Repeatedly.  By her father.  

And then he resurrects her and starts over.  

And about those resurrections?  It’s not like he just picks her newly killed body and immediately brings her back - check out that first panel on the second row.   Not only is she killed and revived countless times, he lets her corpse at least partially rot before resurrecting her, so that when she returns to life, she is treated to the sight  of her skin regrowing over her rotted flesh.  And as soon as Ra’s notices she’s alive again… they start again.

How long did that go on? Unclear, but she’s still fighting him as a grown woman in the equivalent of this time period in The Gift...

...so I’m guessing the answer is “it didn’t stop until she left him.”

To be honest, I’m not really sure what the Rebirth version of Ra’s and Talia’s dynamic even was.  The classic relationship doesn’t work at all with this backstory, and we’ve never really seen a lot of what the new paradigm might be since they’ve been out of contact since well before Rebirth.  But what we do know is, she was an active assassin from a young age.

Unlike Classic Talia who was actually never an active assassin at all:

We can also glean bits and pieces of information regarding her Rebirth upbringing from other appearances. Over in Silencer, we find out that despite her brilliance, the fact that she was carrying out assassinations for him, and the fact that she could defeat her ancient swordmaster father even as a child, she was never good enough for him: 

He was dissatisfied with her, and so he created metahumans using his genes to replace her.  Ultimately, this drives her to plot against Ra’s because... who wouldn’t?

It’s not entirely clear what her ambitions were, specifically but judging from this bit of Batman and Robin (New52, but seemingly still canon for Damian’s backstory):

It involved winning Batman over to her side and ruling the world through Damian.  This is further confirmed by her comment to Honor in Silencer Annual #1 here:

Where she indicates that Bruce is family to her, and still features in her future plans. What’s strange here is that she also says later that she intends to kill him personally, which is.  Weird and out of nowhere, but what else is new.  As a sidenote, Silencer is just strange because it ignores everything about Talia’s history not just in terms of changing her personality but in terms of ignoring the timeline of events, but... moving along...

Talia intends to form Leviathan to break free of him and pursue her own agenda.  But, while apparently finding her insufficient, Ra’s cannot let her go.  Not only that, he actively works to destroy everything she is trying to accomplish, including trying to kill Batman just because she desires him.  In fact, he also tries to have Talia herself assassinated:

Another thing is, Rebirth Talia is rather older than she looks, as evidenced by her having been an adult when she met Honor. 

Which means, in the end, we have a woman who was abused and repeatedly killed by her father, then thrown in a Lazarus Pit (but only after her body has lain around long enough to partially decompose!) and forced to repeat the cycle for who knows how long, but apparently quite a long time - decades, maybe centuries. Who even knows.  She’s been working as an assassin since her teens.  Despite her excelling and even surpassing him in various ways, he considers her inferior, and begins seeking to replace her with artificially created metahuman heirs.  Eventually, Talia decides she wants to break with him, and he responds by first trying to destroy everything she cares about and then trying to have her killed. 

OKAY, SO.  Nightmare fuel.  I genuinely can’t begin to imagine what it would be like growing up in that environment, and under the circumstances it’s certainly no shock that Rebirth Talia is warped.  

Even so, what stands out to me in the B&R issue is that, initially, even her wildest ambitions required her to exercise power through a man – it’s just her son instead of her father or her potential husband.  This says a good deal about how her upbringing, as well as her father’s fixation on marrying her off, has affected her self-image.  And for those who say Talia evidences arrogance and self-importance… yes she does.  Which is often a symptom of low self-esteem.  In fact even Narcissistic Personality Disorder typically stems from overcompensation for a feeling of worthlessness.

The traditional/original Ra’s/Talia dynamic had some elements of this story, but not all and not nearly to the same extent.  Furthermore, Classic Talia had something else - someone else - to love and look to for hope. Rebirth Talia does not.  Because as far as I can tell, in Rebirth, Talia and Batman’s relationship has very little in common with the conflicted romance they shared in their original stories.  And that’s how we transition to...

II. Beloved of the Bat?

So, Bruce Wayne.  

Again, the extent of their relationship in Rebirth is unclear, but it definitely isn’t what it was pre-Rebirth.  

The original Bruce/Talia story is basically as such:  Talia meets him when she’s kidnapped by Dr. Daark, and falls in love with him.  Bruce is also drawn and attracted to her.  This results in Ra’s deciding to test Bruce for suitability as Talia’s husband and his own heir.  Bruce passes, but unsurprisingly has no interest in running a criminal empire, though he does fall in love with Talia.  This leads to a rather intense on/off romance that ultimately results in Damian Wayne, and continues until Tower of Babylon when Talia finally tires of being stuck between her father and her lover and breaks away from both of them. With Bruce and Talia’s relationship having been called to an end (by her, mind you – one day I may do a writeup on Bruce/Talia and how often what happened between them is misremembered by writers and readers alike), Bruce becomes involved with Catwoman in Hush.  Even so, we see in Death and the Maidens that Bruce does still love Talia.

Meanwhile, Talia’s previously unknown sister Nyssa kidnaps and repeatedly murders and resurrects her (sound familiar?) until she more or less goes mad.  By the end of the ordeal, she can barely speak, and she willing to do anything for Nyssa to avoid being killed again.  This results in Talia disavowing her love for Bruce, which seems to be the catalyst for him to finally move on from her, though not without considerable pain.

Okay this is important to run down, because the Rebirth story has changed everything about their relationship.

Gotta love those evil expressions.  It helps us remember that she’s a heartless monster.

Anyway so, In Silencer Annual #1, Silencer does note that Talia had previously said she was in love with Batman, so we know that she loved him, okay.  But what does love mean to Rebirth Talia?  We can find the answer to that if we go back to Roles of Engagement:

She “loved” him because she considered him a potential equal.  That’s not really a bad basis for loving someone initially – and even Classic Talia’s love for Bruce was initially sparked from a place of admiration.  But while Classic Talia eventually grew into a more complete love for him, it seems like Rebirth Talia is still stuck on objective: seek worthy mate.  In fact, once it’s clear that she and Bruce are not coming back together, she just goes ahead and propositions Slade Wilson because she figures he can give her strong children, too:

Notably, this obsession with strong offspring sort of comes out of nowhere when Morrison takes over, but anyway, from that perspective it’s not hard to understand why Bruce’s feelings for her would also be somewhat muted in Rebirth:

Because while Classic Bruce/Talia was a love story that stretched for over 30 years in our time, and most of their adult lives in canon… Rebirth Bruce/Talia is repeatedly presented as a short infatuation on his end, and a dangerous obsession with genetics on hers. The above panel is from Batman #66, and is part of the Knightmares arc, which is important because while it appears to be Selina saying it… it’s actually Bruce’s thoughts about the women in his life coming out through his imagined version of Selina.  And to him, those women amount to nothing much – none of them even warrant a direct callout.  Everyone besides Selina is a “whoever.”

Interlude and Sum I

So... Classic Ra’s was controlling, possessive and dismissive of her at times, but he was also devoted, protective and genuinely loving.  The relationship was complicated and problematic but affectionate. 

Rebirth Ra’s is an abusive tyrant who repeatedly murders and belittles his daughter and, when she decides to break from him, attempts to systematically destroy everything she cares about and then have her killed.

Classic Bruce/Talia was a complicated romance between two people who genuinely loved each other, but were always separated by circumstances.  He loved her for years, and she loved him unconditionally, and they struggled over that from the day they met until they permanently separated as a result of her being brainwashed.   

Rebirth!Talia went in search of someone she considered worthy of her so they could have a genetically perfect child to conquer the world with.  Bruce briefly had feelings for her in a moment between romantic rounds with Catwoman.

My point is this:  Rebirth Talia has never experienced genuine love or support from anyone in her life, or for anyone in her life. Her relationship with the two men she traditionally loved, and whose love for her has imprisoned, empowered and defined her for much of her existence as a character, was utterly gutted in Rebirth, leaving Rebirth Talia’s life as a prolonged emotional void.  Which makes what comes next remarkable in some ways… and predictable in others.

Because this is where we talk about Damian.

III. Olympias to his Alexander

Now, I’m not going to get into the circumstances behind Damian’s conception because what the whole hell, there is absolutely no consistency there.  Various people are very invested in one or another of the myriad versions of his conception that DC has repeatedly retconned and revised, generally leaning to whichever one fits their preferred personal narrative, and that’s fine but objectively?  Absolutely no consistency, situation unclear.  So let’s just go with “Damian resulted from this mess.”

In Batman and Robin #0 we see that Talia basically raised him the way Ra’s raised her… with some major deviations.  She used his desire to know his heritage and know his father’s name as the carrot to motivate him to succeed, rather than the fear of death and pain as a stick to punish him  for failure. 

Talia does not kill her son, whom she duels with wooden blades rather than steel.  And she is not shown to physically abuse him… aside from the swordfights, which of course is already bad.  

Mind you, I’m not denying that his upbringing is still brutal.  What I’m saying is, placed in the context of her own upbringing we can see that she was trying to raise him with more kindness and greater love than her father had her – an improved parental style, but still reflective of the only style she, herself, has ever known.  

So it’s predictable that he’s essentially mistreated… because she literally has never encountered an emotionally healthy relationship and wouldn’t know how to raise him any differently even if she wanted to.  

But it’s also remarkable because despite that, you can see she is trying to be a better mother than Ra’s was a father, and not let Damian grow up feeling unwanted and unworthy the way she did, herself.

Unlike Ra’s, she never tells Damian he is insufficient – on the contrary, she holds him up as the chosen, a conqueror, and dreams of a future when he will lead with both parents at his back.  Remember, this is a woman who was never seen as worthy of inheriting Ra’s al Ghul’s organization, and she wants to make sure Damian knows the world is his to hold.  The bit about having both parents is important, too, because per Batman Inc, Talia felt deprived of her mother, whom Ra’s had discarded as soon as she was no longer useful to him.

In short, she does for Damian everything she wished Ra’s had done for her.  

But, in so doing, she falls into many of the same traps that Ra’s had fallen into: she doesn’t provide what Damian wants, or even what he actually needs.  Instead, she gives him what he asks for, and what she thinks he needs.  But for someone who grew up without love, trying to understand how to provide it is complicated, and difficult.  

Anyway, when Damian finally defeats her, she fulfills her promise and brings him to meet Bruce.  This involves a last ditch effort to unite their family: she offers to reform.  

But not only does Bruce reject her, ultimately Damian does, as well.   This is, from Damian’s perspective, completely understandable.  Who wants to live that kind of life?  But from Talia’s perspective she has now been rejected by her own child, in addition to her father and the man she hoped to spend her life with.  You can see the raw hurt this causes her clearly, as a woman who had always yearned for family starts having exchanges like this:

And while we’re at it, count Honor as another person who left her.

And to be clear here, I’m not saying they were wrong to leave her.  Rebirth Talia is not a good person, not a kind person, not really anyone I’d want to willingly hang around.  And yes, she’s clearly manipulating Honor with her affectionate words, although I’d argue this is largely because manipulation is all she's ever experienced and all she knows how to do. 

So, what am I saying?

Interlude and Sum II - Why Is She Like That?

Just to catch it all up, we have a woman who was abused by her father, including being repeatedly murdered and resurrected, treated as inferior and insufficient despite being Ra’s’ equal or superior in many ways, who spent her young life performing assassinations and otherwise conforming her behavior to her father’s demands only to discover he was creating alternate heirs because she’s somehow still not enough for him.  She has never experienced love, seemingly has no real understanding of what it is.

When she settles on someone she believes that she loves, she is ultimately nothing to him but a “whoever” - a temporary respite from the yo-yo relationship he has with another woman.  

Then Damian happens and, from her perspective, she raises him with all the love, pride and approval that she herself never had.  In an effort to unite the family, she also attempts to do what would please Ra’s - conform her behavior to Bruce’s preferences - but he still rejects her.  

Meanwhile, she has “adopted” Honor Guest, whom she also shows favor to, but who also wants to leave her, and ultimately does just that, without even saying goodbye.   

And then we have some.  Quirks in her story - some specifics that really bear looking at in greater detail.

Repeated murder and resurrection:  So how bad is that?  It’s bad.  The first time Talia experiences this kind of thing is in Death and the Maidens, which is probably no longer canon.  But okay this was Classic Talia and for comparison, this breaks Talia’s spirit so completely that she essentially becomes Nyssa’s puppet.  

She is literally never the same again, even after Nyssa is killed.  In fact, it’s this that turned her into the monstrous Talia that we meet in Morrison’s run to begin with, so we already know she can be broken by this kind of treatment… but let’s use another example.  

Let’s use… Batman.  

He’s got one of the strongest wills in DC, right?  Well, lets rewind to a story called Emperor Joker, where the Joker attained Mr. Mxyzpltck’s omnipotent powers which he uses to repeatedly torture and murder Batman and resurrect him every day.  

This completely destroys Bruce to the point where the Spectre has to erase his memory of it in order to make Bruce functional as a person again.

So imagine that happening to Talia, as a child, at her own father’s hands.  And not for days, for years. And that’s without even considering the method of resurrection, which brings us to…

Lazarus Madness: Let’s talk about the Lazarus Pit.  It’s a magical mystical ley line-powered bath that resurrects and heals.  We all know that.  But the thing is, that’s not all it does: it also drives the one bathed or healed mad. For a short time, they become superhumanly strong, and also overtaken with violent bloodlust.  The first Lazarus pit was used to resurrect a sultan’s son, who promptly murdered Ra’s al Ghul’s wife Sora.  Since then, Ra’s himself has been the primary beneficiary of its benefits, with interesting results… namely that Ra’s has been slowly going mad for centuries.  

Because even though the intensity of the bloodlust and madness fades, it never completely disappears, and cumulative effect eventually twists a person’s nature beyond recognition.  In his first life, Ra’s was a good-natured doctor, but over the many exposures he has found himself becoming progressively worse. 

A quote from Denny O’Neil, Ra’s’s creator:

“...we gave Ra’s a benevolent motivation.  You can certainly quarrel with his methods ... But Ra's is a loony bird.  He’s been alive for 400 years and he’s become a maniacal sociopath.”

Dick Grayson concurs, and acknowledges its cause:

Even Ra’s himself is aware of it – this is why he didn’t want Jason bathed in the Lazarus Pit, because he is all too aware of the demons it stirs in a person.

So, what is the impact on Talia, who is quickly and repeatedly tortured and killed, and then resurrected using a method that is known to drive people insane?  I’m going with “not the best.”  It’s frankly astounding that she still resembles a human, psychologically.  

Assassin work at a young age: While there has been a long-standing debate about the effects of exposure to violence on all people and children in particular, in general the consensus is, yes, exposure does cause desensitization.  Obviously this doesn’t mean people are going to generally become serial killers because they played a violent video game, but it does have a numbing effect – just think about how people who watch enough horror films are harder to scare with horror films.  

Now imagine that, instead of watching people murder and commit violent acts on television or on film, a child is instead expected to perform said acts themselves.  How desensitizing would that be?  

Frankly, to see all we need to do is look at Damian, who grew up under similar circumstances and, as a result, initially exhibits what I can only call red flag behavior.

The thing is, Damian isn’t so dissimilar from his mother in this regard.  Like Talia, he becomes morally twisted, emotionally empty and ultimately tethered not to his own sense of morality or self but to other people’s perceptions and demands of him and who he should be.  Before he meets Bruce, he adheres to the League’s expectations, and when he meets Bruce, he instead aligns himself with Bruce’s code of behavior, even though he does not actually believe in it.  It takes a good deal of time and work for him to begin developing his own beliefs and boundaries.  The difference between Damian and Talia is that he had Bruce and Bruce, despite his flaws, loved Damian enough to try for his sake.

Arguably, this is a defining difference between Classic and Rebirth Talia, as well.  Classic Talia also viewed Bruce as her beacon and her path to salvation and hope.

But if, in Rebirth, Bruce never really loved her, and in fact she barely loved him, then there is no catalyst for her to begin seeking another path.  Rebirth Talia didn’t have anything but the League, and even Ra’s barely cared for her.  As a result, she was boxed into her role by fate, which she acknowledges in Teen Titans, as she wishes better for her son than she had herself.

Anyway, obviously, there are no studies on the effect of taking assassin work as a child, but my general guess here is that she has a twisted understanding of the value of life and the significance of death.  Which brings me to another massive issue that permeates the character and may even help explain her choice to put a hit on Damian at one point.

Death as Optional: Death is an inevitability, right? Like taxes. Nothing you do can prevent it, or reverse it, so all you can do is live with it, and make the most of what you have. It’s said that the existence of death is what lends meaning to life, and while I’m not sure I’m quite on board with that, the fact that death is permanent certainly does lend a certain gravitas to it.  It’s also the reason we fear death and what lies beyond it.

Unless you’re an al Ghul.

For an al Ghul, death is opt in.  Because Ra’s is essentially immortal (which is also a new thing, by the way) and because Talia herself has been repeatedly resurrected, as has her brother Dusan (assuming he’s still in continuity post-Rebirth), to Talia death has no weight to it.  No gravitas.  It is easily doled out, and just as easily forced into retreat.  

Given that, it becomes exceptionally easy to threaten death, even to those she loves, because there’s nothing to say she can’t change her mind and take it back.  

Now to be clear, my argument is not that she had the intention of taking it back – she didn’t really intend for Damian to die to begin with for one thing.  It’s just that, because of who she is and what she has experienced, Talia would always act with the knowledge that she can choose to endanger someone’s life and think about whether she’s comfortable with the result (their being dead) later.

This is evident in both Ra’s and Talia, each of whom are willing to use death and resurrection as a tool to restructure people they don’t even want dead, as Ra’s attempts to do with Damian and Talia, and as Talia does with Honor Guest.

…as a sidenote can I just say that the Lazarus Pit’s effects are so weird.  In some stories it can’t resurrect at all, and in others it can resurrect after decades without a problem.  In some it just reduces age, and in some it also heals memories.  Here it’s being used to erase memories, which makes no sense since a Pit his how Jason Todd got his memories back. Also, this is the first I’ve ever heard of al Ghuls having especially strong resistance to the Pit’s corrosive effects on personality.  Considering it’s just a bunch of chemicals on a ley line, I’m not sure how that would work, but now I’m just imagining Ra’s with a book of Lazarus recipes like, Well, I’m needing one that restores memories today so Ima add an extra pinch of ginko.

ANYWAY.

V. “R” Stands for Redemption

There was a time, a few years back, when Damian had his own series, Robin: Son of Batman.  And therein, you see one of the few efforts to explain and redeem Talia’s character.  There, while she was still presented as colder and more aggressive than her Classic counterpart, she was still capable of compassion, protectiveness and love.

It was essentially explained as a result of her being cleansed of the toxin that was Ra’s al Ghul’s influence, via having darkness physically removed from her body.

Now, to be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about that particular route – I feel like it would have been more honest to have her resurrection heal the Lazarus damage, for example, but it’s a start.  And, in the end, Damian left her with the chance to redeem herself and earn back his and Bruce’s trust.

Aaaand she has failed. Or more precisely, writers have failed to follow up on this thread, and have instead doubled down on her as the evil Dragon Mother.  I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure what’s going on with DC’s fixation on evil Asian ninja moms but I’m just going to… pretend that isn’t a thing in order to suggest some paths that could salvage her character.

I’ve seen it said that she’s been too evil for too long to be redeemed, but honestly that’s pretty silly. First of all these are comic books, anyone can be redeemed.  The same writer who wreaked havoc on Talia also had Magneto, a Holocaust survivor, going full Nazi on humans, which was incredibly out of character, and Marvel basically fixed it by saying “guess who that wasn’t? Magneto.  It wasn’t Magneto.”  Technically DC could just Hal Jordan her, or let the rumored upcoming continuity shuffle bring her previous history back.  As for the “been this way too long” argument, I mean she was Original Flavor Talia for more than twice as long and that wasn’t too long for DC to flip her entire motivation and personality.  Catwoman was a villain for decades, and yet here she is, protecting people, making out with Batman on rooftops and leaving him at the alter for altruistic reasons. Same with Ivy, except for the parts about Batman, soooo… you know….

Anyway. I’m going to work with the assumption that we have to use what we have, and that we’re trying to get her to something like her pre-Morrison personality.

The first thing she would need is the experience of love. Someone to anchor her, who won’t judge her or abandon her even when she’s in a dark mood. Even when she’s showing her pain and her anger.  Someone who recognizes how broken she is, but decides to try to help her rather than rejecting her.  Someone who, in essence, will do for her what Bruce did for Classic Talia, and what he does for Damian in his flawed way.

Now, I’m a massive Bruce/Talia shipper, no lie.  However, I do not think Rebirth Bruce and Talia have the kind of connection that could provide her this essential first need. Someone like Superman or Wonder Woman would probably be a better choice, simply because they have greater warmth of character and a drive toward helping lost souls.  

After that, she would need some good old fashioned redemption time.  Maybe a miniseries where she goes Xena on the world: a redemption quest.  Maybe joining a team like the Outsiders or the Suicide Squad where she can earn her way back from the brink.  The Outsiders would be cool, especially, because it would allow Bruce and Damian to monitor her and judge her as she progresses.  

…and I mean, from a character perspective that’s all she really needs.  From a writing perspective, she needs a writer who will nail down things like where Damian came from without going back to the drug-and-rape well, which was a retcon to begin with and has been retconned out and then back in over and over again.   And most importantly, she needs a writer who has the interest in exploring her internal world to the point where they can actually draw these things out of her instead of just ignoring the fridge-horror implications of things like… the way she was raised.

If we could get these things to coincide, then Talia, too, can be saved!

Or we could just reboot the timeline again, whatever.

Anyway, that’s all folks, thanks for reading this far, I have no idea how you did.  If you’re interested in this kind of thing, feel free to drop me a line and ask me… whatever, because God knows I have plenty to say about Talia and about comics in general.  

In closing, something to remind us of the character we’ve lost.

Until next time!

[justgotham]

I really must thank the organisers of the Heroes & Villains event. I met up with the agent who had organised our passes, and arranged our interviews. He led me to a behind the scenes meeting room, knocked on the door, and inside I saw two of my favourite actors waiting for me. What was that line about real life, again?

My initial reaction was disbelief, I was immediately star-struck. To their credit both gentlemen put me at ease. By the end of the conversation It felt more like I’d been in a room with old friends. At first I couldn’t even get my fingers and thumbs working to hit the record button, but got there eventually. This wasn’t a tech issue, this was interviewer malfunction!

Action!

Dark Knight News: Right, it’s finally recording.

Robin Lord Taylor: Boom!

DKN: So, I’m here for Dark Knight News and DC Comics News with Cory Michael Smith and Robin Lord Taylor AKA Edward Nygma and Oswald Cobblepot. First of all, how are you finding London? Have we been nice to you?

Cory Michael Smith: Oh, yeah. I love it.

RLT: It’s been fantastic.

CMS: This is my fifth or sixth time here, it’s probably my most visited city outside the U.S. I love it! I came early, I’m staying late… it’s great!

RLT: Yeah, the same. I think it’s maybe my third or fourth time. It’s just fantastic. When I first came to London I was like oh my gosh, there’s actually another city I could conceivably see myself living in besides New York.

DKN: That’s how I feel about New York!

RLT: Really? Wow. They feel like sister cities in a way. They’re very similar in many ways.

Riddle Me This

DKN: I have loads of questions for you from the whole team, but… let’s have a look. (Under my breath) Are you single? Nope, skipping that… Do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend/partner/significant other? Nuh-uh… Will you marry me… What th’ … (Back in full voice) Ah, here we go (CMS and RLTare laughing at this point.)

Edward and Oswald… radical departures from the way that anyone has played them before, which is awesome. A conscious decision, or did the producers want you to go down fresh avenues of interpretation?

CMS: It was very conscious. In the beginning we had a conversation with the creators about the character, but it’s felt pretty hands off for most of it. Early on with Nygma we were trying still to find the character, we were so far away from The Riddler. So we had some course corrections, and tried some stuff and had some different plot lines. It’s been so fun to go from Nygma to The Riddler. It’s felt like a really exciting evolution. Then the back and forth…. it’s felt like a very organic development of character. It’s been really fun.

RLT: I don’t know if you’ve heard, but it was really fascinating the way they cast the show. When I auditioned (Robin looks over to Cory) and I don’t know if it was the same for you, but we were not allowed to see the script. We weren’t even supposed to know what the project was, so they had sent out just scenes that were written just for the audition, with very little description.

When I came in to audition I made choices not knowing it was The Penguin. I was given a scene, and so, OK, here’s what I’m gonna do with that, and it just happened to be exactly what they had in mind. And that was the same for all of us, they didn’t want us to come in with any expectation or any thought about what came before. So it was very intentionally, made to be a departure for all of us, from the characters as we knew them before.

DKN: That makes so much sense. That’s a much more organic way to form a character naturally. One of my favorite parts of the show is how organic and natural it does feel from a character performance standpoint. I was speaking to Drew (Powell) earlier, and having a real, physical Solomon Grundy, rather than a CGI monstrosity was brilliant.

CMS: Thanks.

RLT: Thank you.

Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue. I Have Multiple Personalities… And So Do I.

DKN: Obviously duality is a huge theme in Gotham, and in Batman’s universe. Robin, you started out as a good son, a family man, forced into becoming a monster. Cory, you were a nice, stand up guy, working for the police. You then had your heart broken, and your mind destroyed by guilt, forcing you to become the Riddler. Has it helped you, as actors, playing these two radically different personalities, that are the same person?

CMS: Absolutely! After four years of doing this, I feel way more in command of my body, and my voice, and there’s something really exciting about being on a TV show that feels so… operatic, and big. We both come from a theatre background, and you have the allowance to really fill a space when you’re doing theatre.

That’s rare in TV and film today, to be granted the authority to really flex your muscles that way. To learn how to do it on-screen, in a way that is focused, but still like… eruptive… it’s been a great education.

RLT: Yeah, definitely. It’s been great. There’s the idea that, when you’re on film that everything has to be smaller. This show has completely stripped all that away.

DKN: Every episode feels like a movie, and every performance is full of life.

RLT: Exactly, it’s larger… it’s like the largest performance you can give, and they want that. They encourage us to be big, and to be brave and put it all out there. That’s what I’ll take away from this whole experience. Feeling so much more confident in who I am, and knowing that when I walk into a room, I know how to command a space now… which I don’t think I really understood that before.

The Tools Of The Trade

DKN: Would either of you like to have the comic-book toys, like the staff, or the umbrellas in the final season?

CMS: Oh, yeah! Give me my cane! (All three of us laugh)

RLT: Yeah, he gets a cane, I get my umbrellas.

CMS: Give me my cane!

RLT: I’d love the helicopter umbrella, that would be great. Also, I’m really hoping that we get the monocle next year. In the storyline it’s an injury, so I don’t know who would cause it in the show (points at Cory) probably him… (We laugh) I think it would be fantastic! Especially since it’s wrapping up, I feel like, by the end, all of the pieces are gonna start coming together for all of us.

CMS: (To Robin) Do you plan on gaining 50 lbs this season? (We all laugh) Can you imagine? Oh, my God!

RLT: And shrinking! (More laughs)

DKN: That’s too funny.

I Did it My Way

DKN: Like you said, Robin, sadly things will be wrapping up. There’ve been quotes from the show-runners saying that characters like Mother and Orphan / The Lady Shiva and Cassandra Cain are coming onto the show. Are you guys excited about that? Some new blood?

CMS: Absolutely, yeah, totally.

RLT: I’m excited about new blood, but really what I’m hoping is, since it’s the last season, that even with the introduction of new characters, we’ll still be able to come back and focus on the core family, the core group that has been there since the beginning.

DKN: The backbone of the show.

RLT: Exactly. That’s going to be really gratifying, and it’s going to be very emotional. I’m already anticipating that.

CMS: I know, It’s a lot.. It’s a lot.

Men For All Seasons

DKN: The fans are, obviously, really sad about it ending too. I’ve been reporting on the show since it started, and one small comfort is that you’ll be going out with a bang, and not with a whimper.

CMS: Oh… it’ll be epic!

RLT: It’ll be fantastic. Also, just to know that it’s the end. I’ve been saying that once the show is done and time goes on, new people will still be discovering it. I’m just so glad that they’ll be able to watch it, all five seasons as though it’s a movie. The fact that we will have an ending, and that it will be, over five years, the big arc of the whole thing. I think it will be really great.

DKN: I was hoping you’d get ten years, like Smallville did, but…

(They both laugh and smile)

RLT: Hey, you never know… maybe Netflix will pick us up.

(More laughter from all three of us)

Every Girl’s Crazy ‘Bout A Sharp Dressed Man

DKN: It’s great seeing you both so casual, and relaxed. You’re usually in these sharp suits, and all dressed up. The costumes in the show are great! Do they feel as good to wear as they look?

CMS: Oh my God, yes. It’s extraordinary. We’re fortunate to have them custom made, and when you put them on you feel… powerful.

RLT: Yeah.

CMS: It feels right, and the fabric is beautiful, or it’s glistening, or it’s velvet, or whatever it may be. It just feels rich, and you can walk into a room and really own the clothes.

RLT: Yeah. It’s like putting on the skin of the character. I love working that way too, to be able to go from the outside into the emotional interior. To be able to put on the suit, have the nose, and then the hair. It’s like all these pieces come together, and then I’m Oswald. It feels really great.

Comic-Book Men

DKN: What was your relationship with comics. Before working on Gotham, and since?

CMS: Before the show, I didn’t have a relationship with comics, we didn’t grow up with them in our house. My brother and I didn’t read them. Now… (Laughing) now I have a collection! Particularly of Batman. I’m mostly focused on reading Batman comics, and now I have a little library that I’m pretty proud of.

DKN: Cool!

RLT: Yeah, same. I wasn’t a huge comic-book person as a child, but I was obsessed with the movies. Now it really is so rich. The art, the creativity and background of these characters I find so fascinating. It really feels like it’s mythology… the mythology of today, and I think it’s so exciting. The fact that it inspires both myself, and other people, that’s exciting.

DKN: Thank you so much.

So, to close. Any final message to our readers, your fans, from Cory and from Robin. What would you like to say?

CMS: Join us on the ride to the finale. It’s gonna be epic!

RLT: I love you, and thank you.

DKN: And we all love you, and thank you. Thanks guys!

RLT: Cheers, mate!

CMS: Thank you, man.

DKN: Fingers crossed, we’ll see you next year!

CMS: Yeah!

RLT: Fantastic!

[davidmann95]

I haven't been able to tolerate a comics news site since ComicsAlliance shut down so what news out of SDCC is actually worth knowing about?

I’ve gotten so many questions regarding SDCC-related news that I figured I’d just do one big post, and this seems as opportune an ask to build that off of as any. To kick off, in terms of news that’s not for me but is a big deal, there’s a trailer for the next season of Doctor Who, and Star Wars: Clone Wars is shockingly coming back for a final reduced season years after the fact. Congrats to the fans of both franchises! Plus yesterday we got the announcement of Orlando and Foreman’s Electric Warriors for DC (as well as Orlando’s Dead Kings with Matt Smith at Aftershock Comics) and the Wonder Woman/Justice League Dark October crossover.

So first and foremost in terms of the reaction it picked up, OH MY GOD:

It’s like the Bat In The Sun team handed over their production to their shitty kids but made them work off a third of the budget. I kept seeing the jokes about it on Twitter, and I kept thinking they were surely hilarious exaggerations, AND NOT A ONE OF THEM EVEN SLIGHTLY WAS. At least it now makes sense why Hawk and Dove is here, given the Liefeld connection: this is 90s as helllllllllllllllllllllll, and while a part of me hopes it swerves unexpectedly in a couple seasons into Fun 90s DC with Starman and Wally West and an Electric Blue Superboy and Titans One Million, I can’t pretend I wouldn’t gleefully hatewatch this if it wasn’t behind a paywall. What it really comes down to is that, as I saw someone mention, the over-the-top content warning at the beginning isn’t actually by any means to get rid of anyone under 18, but specifically to appeal to them over anyone over it: there is nothing about this show not precision-crafted to appeal to teenagers watching something they technically aren’t supposed to, since anyone older than that will just laugh until the stars grow cold. And while it’s one line in particular that’s rightfully drawn all the attention, to me the clear defining moment is Beast Boy taking his big goofy dramatic leap, and you expect him to transform, but that ain’t happening (I fully expect he’ll just have claws and growl and do assorted Wolverine shit instead), because that kind of thing is for STUPID KIDS, whereas this is RAD. 

RAD, dare I say…to the EXTREME.

Also, the pilot Robin’s scene was presumably drawn from was written by Akiva Goldsman, Greg Berlanti, and Geoff Johns. So was it the guy behind Batman & Robin, the guy behind the CWverse, or the recent President of DC Comics who ushered FUCK BATMAN into the world? Because all three of those possibilities are equally hilarious. In any case, the rubicon has been crossed: easily one of the top ten, probably one of the five or so most iconic superheroes of all time said fuck in a piece of mass media. Where we go from here, nobody knows. But at the very least I’ll take the L for my original certainty that this would take place in the CW DCverse, because that clearly isn’t going to be the case. Though boy, imagine if it was. Personally I like to imagine this is a totally normal DCU, and suddenly going full 90s and murdering a bunch of people is their universe’s version of normal teen rebellion.

Additionally, it’s now seemingly set in stone that the fourth DC Universe live-action show alongside Titans, Doom Patrol, and Swamp Thing will be a Stargirl show where Courtney Whitmore learns about her legacy and tries to track down the Justice Society, described as in the flavor of Superman ‘78 and Wonder Woman. Again, if it wasn’t behind a paywall I’d check it out.

And before turning to comics proper, we learned from WB itself that there are no plans to idiotically pour millions into making a functional Justice League Snyder cut a thing, unsurprisingly making some of the worst people on the internet be just the absolute worst (I’m interested myself in it artistically even if I don’t think it would be very good, but at this point it would feel like a validation of some really rotten people’s behavior if this happened). Meanwhile the first trailer for the Dragon Ball Super movie dropped, and yeah, I’m still happy to see Broly. This looks big in a way Dragon Ball for all its action rarely gets, and seeing Paragus suggests Toriyama understood what worked about the original flick, which is a very good sign. Did they swap out Vic Mignogna as Broly though? Wouldn’t blame him, I know he’s said he hates the part, but surprising nonetheless. And the Spider-Man game dropped another trailer, along with a ‘Velocity’ bonus suit designed by Adi Granov.

The big comics news of the day was of course the long-awaited confirmation that Green Lantern is being relaunched - apparently as The Green Lantern - in November by Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp. What’s surprising is that Morrison’s currently insisting that since the last decade or so of the franchise has dealt with constant upheaval and cosmic apocalypse, his run is going to scale back down to a character-focused study of Hal (“He’s a loner and a drifter and he’s an unreconstructed man. It was nice to do that and to go a little bit old-fashioned with it. He doesn’t belong here at all, you know? He’s longing for the heavens, and to be back up as a Green Lantern. We’re doing Hal Jordan where, you know he’s a good cop, but is he really a good guy? And we’re looking into his relationships and how he deals with people. And also the fact that, if you’ve got a job as a space cop, it’s hard to be stuck on the planet Earth. He has other lives on other planets.”) amidst him going about his duties and dealing with weird alien crimes and space threats, such as stopping aliens from ‘parking’ a planet-sized artificial megastructure near a sun and causing damage to nearby worlds, and solving the murder of a gaseous lifeform.

I doubt it’ll necessarily stay there forever - his Batman and Action Comics runs, after all, were both initially marketed as staying on the smaller side by his standards, and the one idea we know of Morrison having once had for the Green Lanterns back in the day was making them a multiversal force. But it’s remarkable how, well, normal this sounds coming from Morrison. Clearly this must be a passion project if he’s doing a monthly again for the first time in 5 years, especially since DiDio mentioned he had to be persuaded (ultimately persuading himself as his attempts to brush off the proposition led to him thinking about the possibilities and rapidly talking himself into it) to make time for this amidst an incredibly busy schedule of surely more profitable and creatively unshackled projects, but on the surface level? This sounds like the closest Morrison has come since his JLA days to writing a regular superhero comic. At this point in his career, I’m very, very curious what that’s going to look like. Just hoping he read the King/Shaner oneshot on whatever reread he surely went through to catch up on current continuity. And also hoping this guy was right that it’ll turn out “the REAL construct that was limited by our willpower and imagination all along was…REALITY.”

On smaller notes:

* Kelly Sue DeConnick and Robson Rocha are taking over Aquaman, with an opening arc that shows him washing up amnesiac on an isle of forgotten sea gods. DeConnick seems to be like the Jeffs Lemire and Parker where my appreciation of their work is limited to very, very specific slivers: none of her Marvel superhero stuff I’ve read did anything for me even if I could see the talent behind it, but her Lois story in the last issue of The Adventures of Superman was pitch-perfect (and also had a great Aquaman bit!). This gets at least an issue from me.

* DC announced new titles for DC Ink and DC Zoom, including Cassandra Cain, Oracle, Dick Grayson, Creeper, and Wonder Woman books, while also announcing some artists for the existing titles.

* Geoff Johns is doing (ugh) Shazam with Dave Eaglesham, who showed off a really great, fun cover suggesting the possibility of a tonal shift away from Johns writing the absolute worst version of that character imaginable. On the likelihood of said possibility though, I think @intergalactic-zoo put it best. I might just check it out in trade if word of mouth is overwhelmingly positive, but then, lots of otherwise rational people liked or at least saw merit in his original crack at it with Gary Frank, and you were all deliriously, impossibly wrong back then, too.

* And finally, speaking of Johns, he’s doing Batman: Three Jokers as a 3-issue mini with Jason Fabok, a smart move given that is precisely as much as I’m willing to invest in this out of morbid curiosity. What’s really baffling though is that it’s being released under Black Label. It would seem to destroy the stated purpose of the line by immediately releasing Very Important Continuity Comics under it, but maybe this means Batman’s gonna follow in his protege’s footsteps and say a fuck. Anyway, I’m mostly just hoping it isn’t revealed Fun Golden Age Joker is actually not the original in order to rub out the prospect that he was ever truly anything but a terrifying sidekick-butchering murder machine at the center of very serious stories, because that feels to be like a real possibility. And absolute no question one of the three is gonna turn out to be the lost child of Marionette and Mime in Doomsday Clock.

[riona-is-writing]

Character Development: Worldview

What is a worldview?

The English word ‘worldview’ comes from the German word Weltanshauung, which means “a particular philosophy or view of life.” The term has evolved to mean many things over the years, but essentially, worldview is how a person thinks about/understands the world around them and their relation to it. Someone’s worldview can be secular, religious, spiritual, scientific, and so on, but it isn’t limited to religion and science. 

Worldviews are comprised of:

religion/spirituality

morals

politics

attitude towards others

attitude toward life

belief in what’s important

their values

how they understand the world

their goals in life

Often, these interconnect with one another. For instance, a deeply religious character will most likely base their morals around their religion. Religion could also influence their politics (who they think should be in charge and why - for example, do they believe their king is divinely appointed?). If your character thinks the most important thing in the world is to get rich, then they’ll probably place money and getting it above helping others. Think Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. He values money so much that he loses his fiance over it. Later on, he mistreats his employees because of it. The whole point of the book is about challenging Scrooge’s worldview. And obviously, worldviews can change - your character is not limited to one worldview for the whole story or series.

Some questions* to ask yourself when considering your character’s worldview:

What do they think is moral or right? What do they think is wrong and immoral?

Do they believe people’s lives have a purpose?

Are they religious? How religious? Are they spiritual? Agnostic? Atheistic? Have they just not really thought about any of it? Why or why not?

What do they think is important in life? Do they believe in more materialistic or spiritual things? For example, do they think that it’s more important to be successful in the world (e.g. well off) or do they believe that it’s more important to be a good person?

What makes them happy? Things? Gifts? Their friends?

What do they think is the right way to live? Is it based in religion, or philosophy, or from personal experience?

How have their personal experiences shaped their worldview? Have the experiences have negative or positive effects on their worldview?

What are their goals in life?

What is their philosophy in dealing with other people? Why?

What kind of political (not necessarily party related) philosophy might they have? What is it based in?

Beliefs about nature? Science?

What is their general attitude towards the world and others around them?

*Don’t feel limited by this list of questions. You can ask so many more questions about worldview, because worldview encompasses so much. This list is just to help you get started.

Why does the worldview matter?

When someone reads about your characters, you want them to feel as if they could be real people, right? You want them to feel as if they could walk off the page. Well, in real life, people have very differing worldviews. Not just for big things, like philosophy, religion, and politics, but also in the small things in life - how they believe others should be treated, what makes them happy, how they feel about the world around them, and so on. The same should be true for your characters.

You want your characters to have different worldviews. Even if you don’t agree with your own characters.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read a book where all of the good guys share the exact same worldview as the author. Everybody agrees with everybody, and they all hate the villain (who usually has the opposite worldview from the author). Please, please don’t do this.

There’s always a little part of you in every character, but don’t imbue a character with all of you.

This is not to say that your character(s) can’t have the same worldview as you. Don’t feel pressured to write a character that has completely opposing beliefs from you. Simply make sure that not all of your characters have the exact same worldview as you. Maybe they agree on the big things - killing is bad, stealing is wrong, etc. - but not the little things, like being friendly with other people or believing that friends are necessary. Or maybe they have different reasons for believing the same things. 

Make your characters have differing opinions among themselves. Make them act in different ways for the same reasons, or act in similar ways for different reasons.

For example, let’s look at Batman and Superman. Both believe that criminals need to be stopped. But both of them believe this for different reasons - Batman because he doesn’t want anyone else to end up like him, and Superman because he’s genuinely a good guy who wants to help his adoptive planet. But they disagree a lot on how they should stop criminals. 

Batman tends to act in a more extreme manner, while Superman thinks that being too extreme makes you no better than the criminal you’re fighting. Superman tends to trust the authorities more than Batman does when fighting criminals, because he believes in the power of the law. Batman distrusts the authorities because he believes that their power corrupts them easily. Superman and Batman have valid points, as presented in the comics. Both of them respect and trust each other, but there’s always an underlying conflict of worldviews between them.

This conflict has been explored so many times and in so many different ways in comics, cartoons, and more recently in movies. (My personal favorite comes from “World’s Finest,” from Superman: the Animated Series, from which a gif can be seen below.) But the point is that, even though the two heroes are on the same side, their worldviews cause conflict between them and add tension to the story. 

This doesn’t just apply to your heroes either.

With regards to villains, don’t make them have opposing worldviews to you necessarily. You don’t want them to be one dimensional. You want your villains to be as believable and as realistic as your heroes. This means you have to think about what makes them tick. And their reasons for doing what they do. This doesn’t mean your villain/antagonist gets an excuse for the bad things they do. But well-crafted villains are interesting, because we can see ourselves and/or the heroes reflected in them. Moriarty is like Sherlock Holmes if Sherlock used his skills to commit crimes and not stop them. The Joker is Batman unhinged. Saruman gave into the darkness because he desired power, while Gandalf knew that power corrupts and avoided even the temptation.

One of my favorite shows as a child, Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, focused on the heroes and villains as main characters. Along with the heroes, the villains too had character arcs and important roles in the story. What they did was wrong, and the viewers knew that, but we got to see their side of the story. We got to see why they did what they did. Sometimes the heroes were wrong and the villains were right. Sometimes the heroes were right and the villains were wrong. Sometimes there was no right answer. But in the show, many (if not all) of the characters were given distinct worldviews, whether or not they were a hero, villain, or otherwise. 

Worldview is critical to your character. More so than speech or appearance or anything else, it is your character’s worldview that influences what they say, do, and think. Worldview is critical to every character in your story.

Differences in your characters’ worldviews make your story more complex and tension-filled. Does the antagonist have a point, even if he’s going about it the wrong way? Will the hero have to go against their worldview or their friends’ worldviews to save the day? Challenge yourself and your characters.

Make me worry about not only if your good guys will win, but what the cost of their victory will be. Do they defeat the villain but in a way that irrevocably divides the group? Make me see why the bad guy commits crimes - does he enjoy doing bad things? Or is he acting on a set of twisted principles? Does he believe what he is doing is right? (If you want to see one of the best villains ever crafted who believes what he is doing is right, please go watch Serenity. The Operative was very well done as a "bad guy”). 

To conclude, make your characters unique. Make them realistic. Think about what makes them tick and why. Make them disagree with each other and still work together. Make them conflicted. Make them complex. Because that’s how people in real life work.

This is part of a character development series I’m doing. You can find the rest on my blog, under the tag “character development series.” Other topics already covered: body language, speech, and appearance.

- Ríona

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 10 September 2018

Quick Bits:

 Archie: 1941 #1 is fairly morose and downbeat in tone and execution as a recently graduated Archie Andrews seemingly sleepwalks through this opening chapter, depressed and anxious about the future, both in terms of what he wants to do with his life and with the growing fear of the war in Europe. It’s not bad, elevated by wonderful art from Peter Krause and Kelly Fitzpatrick.

| Published by Archie Comics

Birthright #31 returns after an extended break, opening a new arc following Kallista and Brennan, while diving into the backstory of Mastema. I like Joshua Williamson taking us off down this thread and the art from Andrei Bressan and Adriano Lucas is as beautiful as always.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Cemetery Beach #1 is a very entertaining start to this new action/sci-fi mini-series from Warren Ellis, Jason Howard, and Fonografiks. It’s been a while since I’ve seen some of Ellis’ dialogue be this funny, but it’s very welcome.

| Published by Image

Champions #24 tackles the increasing problem of school shootings with the added intersection of a world with superheroes. Now, that may sound like a recipe for disaster, condescending patronizing or an after school special with saccharine solutions, but that’s not what’s presented here. Jim Zub, Sean Izaakse, Marcio Menyz, Erick Arciniega, and Clayton Cowles instead present a thoughtful story of the helplessness of the situation, that you really should pick up and read for yourself.

| Published by Marvel

Crowded #2 is as good, possibly even better, than the first issue as we get further development of Vita and Charlie’s characters, and a broader understanding of many of the facets of the series’ world. This really is a great comic, wonderful humour, amazing premise, interesting characters, and beautiful art. Christopher Sebela, Ro Stein, Ted Brandt, Tríona Farrell, and Cardinal Rae have something special here. Don’t sleep on it.

| Published by Image

Exiles #8 is a good jumping-on point, as the team’s history is explored and the issue sets up a new group of antagonists in the Watchers. Saladin Ahmed is doing a great job of building these characters and making their unique alternate realities interesting. Nice guest art this issue from Joe Quinones, Joe Rivera, Jordan Gibson, Chris Sotomayor, and Muntsa Vicente. 

| Published by Marvel

Fantastic Four #2 has a couple things in its opening page that could be considered problematic, the first in its depiction of an alien race that could be an analogue to the racial stereotype of Native Americans as the “noble savage”, the second is of the sexualization of a child. Neither are particularly endearing in how they’re presented and I’m kind of surprised they made it to print.

That being said, the rest of the issue is pretty good. It’s the kind of sci-fi adventure you’d expect from the FF, though it does feel like we’ve been dropped in at the end of an adventure we’ve never seen, and it has beautiful artwork from Sara Pichelli, Elisabetta D’Amico, and Marte Gracia.

| Published by Marvel

Hot Lunch Special #2 is just plain great storytelling. Eliot Rahal, Jorge Fornés, and Taylor Esposito are crafting a crime story here that is the perfect storm of characters, plot, and execution. It’s dense and heavy, navigating through the Khoury family and their shock at the death of their youngest, masterfully told through both dialogue and art.

| Published by AfterShock

Iceman #1 isn’t a bad start to a new series from Sina Grace, this time with Nathan Stockman and Federico Blee joining him for the art duties. While still cracking wise a bit, this seems like it’s going in a much more serious direction than some of Grace’s previous series. Great art, and an interesting hook for a new group trying to “cleanse” mutantkind.

| Published by Marvel

Infinity Wars #3 gives us the twist in the tale that’s going to deliver most of the tie-ins and spin-offs for the series, as Gamora remakes the world and causes the fusion of various heroes. It’s an idea we’ve seen before in things like the merged DC/Marvel Amalgam universe, which could be fun depending on where the creative teams take it.

| Published by Marvel

MCMLXXV #1 is kind of a mash-up of different 70s exploitation film genres, creating an interesting action horror story from Joe Casey, Ian MacEwan, Brad Simpson, and Rus Wooton. MacEwan’s art is very nice, reminding me a bit of Troy Nixey, with some interesting character designs and wonderful depictions of the action.

| Published by Image

Mech Cadet Yu #12 concludes the series with a final battle between the robos and the Sharg, again following the important themes of teamwork and sacrifice. This has been a very entertaining, action-packed story from Greg Pak, Takeshi Miyazawa, Raúl Angulo, and Simon Bowland.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Oblivion Song #7 is the big answer to the Transference, maybe, as the series turns itself on its ear again with more sweeping changes. I really quite like how Robert Kirkman and Lorenzo de Felici are keeping us on our toes as the series keeps pressing forward. 

| Published by Image / Skybound

Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #309 concludes this two-parter focusing on Sandman, with gorgeous art from Chris Bachalo and his army of inkers. This one’s a lot more action-oriented than the quiet reflection upon death in the first chapter, but it’s still very satisfying.

| Published by Marvel

Runaways #13 begins a new arc with some incredible guest art from David Lafuente and Jim Campbell. Along with the return of Alex Wilder, this drops in another old threat for the team, leading to one of the more action-packed issues of the series so far. Still, amidst the chaos, Rainbow Rowell still has a laser-focused eye for character development, giving us some interesting reactions to Wilder’s return.

| Published by Marvel

Scales & Scoundrels #12 concludes this two-part arc with Dorma and with it the series for the foreseeable future. This has been a great all ages fantasy adventure series from Sebastian Girner, Galaad, and Jeff Powell, and I wish it had have caught on better since the quality has been extremely high. Great characters and beautiful art, I do hope they find a way to bring it back in some form, and I highly recommend people to check out the series in the collections. 

| Published by Image

Volition #2 is another beautiful comic. The artwork from Omar Francia is gorgeous with a nice polished sheen to the colours that enriches this world of sentient machines.

| Published by AfterShock

Weapon H #7 continues to be more entertaining than anyone probably thought possible. Though I really quite like Cory Smith’s art, I’m thinking that Ario Anindito’s is even more suited to the weird, alien creatures of this turn in the story.

| Published by Marvel

The Wrong Earth #1 is a solid debut, kicking off new publisher, Ahoy’s, foray into comics. It’s a nice package with a lead story, a back-up comic, some interviews, a one pager, and a short story. It gives nice value for what you’re picking up, especially when you consider the talent involved. 

The lead story from Tom Peyer, Jamal Igle, Juan Castro, Andy Troy, and Rob Steen is the main draw, though. It’s a rather brilliant premise of a superhero crossing alternate realities, switching from a kind of Adam West Batman-esque quaint, bright world to a much darker grim and gritty world, and vice versa. It’s executed very well, capturing the tone and atmosphere for both takes perfectly.

The backmatter also nicely enhances the experience, particularly the back-up comic featuring Stinger from Paul Constant and Frank Cammuso, presented in a kind of retro comics fashion. And a suitably bonkers adventure prose story from Grant Morrison, with illustrations by Rob Steen.

| Published by Ahoy Comics

X-23 #4 pushes further to paint the Cuckoos as out and out villains now. Which is a bit of a shame, much like with Emma Frost, but I can’t deny that Mariko Tamaki isn’t doing something interesting with them and the story overall. Also, Juann Cabal and Nolan Woodard continue to deliver stunning artwork.

| Published by Marvel

X-Men Blue #35 takes a moment for each of the time-tossed original five X-Men to chat with their present day counterparts about going back to their own time, while flashing forward to the seemingly nightmarish future that would exist if they stayed. Obviously with Extinction going on events are a bit out of order, but I still like the handle Cullen Bunn has had on these characters.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Accell #14, Amazing Spider-Man #5, Astonisher #10, The Beauty #23, Dejah Thoris #8, Charlie’s Angels #4, Daredevil #608, Domino #6, Farmhand #3, GI Joe: A Real American Hero #256, Head Lopper #9, Joe Golem: The Drowning City #1, Journey Into Mystery: Birth of Krakoa #1, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Tempest #2, Low Road West #1, Mage: The Hero Denied #12, Moth & Whisper #1, Ms. Marvel #34, Nancy Drew #4, The New World #3, Ninja-K #11, Old Man Logan #47, Proxima Centauri #4, RuinWorld #3, the seeds #2, She Could Fly #3, Sleepless #7, Star Trek: The Next Generation - Terra Incognita #3, Star Wars: Darth Vader #21, Star Wars: The Last Jedi #6, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #36, Venom: First Host #3, Wasted Space #5, The Weatherman #4, The Wicked + The Divine #39, World of Tanks: Citadel #5

Recommended Collections: Anthony Bourdain’s Hungry Ghosts, Dissonance - Volume 1, Dry County Complete, DuckTales - Volume 3: Quests & Quacks, Elsewhere - Volume 2, Infinity Countdown, Infinity Countdown Companion, Kick-Ass - Volume 1, Koshchei the Deathless, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers - Volume 6, Oblivion Song - Volume 1, Slam: Next Jam, Star Trek: The Next Generation - Through the Mirror, Star Wars: Darth Vader - Volume 3: Burning Seas, Star Wars: Thrawn, Strangers in Paradise XXV - Volume 1: The Chase

d. emerson eddy did not start a joke that started the whole world crying.

[forthemultiverse]

AU Questions: If Robin/Dick Grayson, Kid Flash/Wally West, Aqualad/Garth and Miss Martian became the Team (under different circumstances), how would they interact with each other? Who do you think would be in charge of that group of teenage heroes? Robin, KF or 'Lad? And what happens when they clash with the Secret Spies of The Light (which includes Artemis, Kaldur, Superboy and their newest member in Icicle Junior) sometimes?

The real question is what are the new circumstances that form them together? Becuase that would definitely shape the team slightly, like if it was just the boys and Roy storming out with M’gann coming later then it would all be pretty normal, if it was like some invasion or something then that make the team a more hardcore team with more pressure on trust and relationships. 

Adding Garth over Kaldur would be more like the Titans comics which means they would all click. Part of the thing about Young superhero teams, even for the characters without powers - they are trained to take down people with powers, and when you’re a teen, having someone like you means you often end up being friends, whether you have anything else in common or not. Part of what I love about the Young Justice comics is how the group kind of bonds together without having much common ground. Cissie and Cassie bond because they have similar names and having that one thing sparks a really strong friendship.

I reckon Robin would be the leader because he is trained to be that way and it’s hard to argue with a Bat. Plus, Dick is so likable that people do tend to gravitate towards him. But then, you do have the issue that Wally would probably want some role or want to prove himself that could create tension. If we’re going off comics, they’re still pretty close friends (I think) so it would probably be an episode thing - they’re battling for control, one goes in alone or does something rash that maybe works out but pisses the team leader off. Dick would also be a very problematic leader in the beginning because of his need for fun and lack of communication, but he’d soon be hit with reality. Like they’d try other leaders for a bit after his lack of communication caused a problem but then it’s proved that his plans are the best and he is a very good people person when he’s allowed to be him and not a miny Bruce. That could then be played into the Nightwing transition and their falling out - He’s his own person and he’s good at what he is. ( I feel like I’m turning this into a Titans/Teen Titans thing now 🤣)

Without Superboy, Miss Martian might fall a bit more into Wally’s flirting which would be interesting to see. The dynamic would change definitely. They’d maybe get together but it would take longer since M’gann didn’t actually like Wally’s flirty - He’d have to realise that he was making her uncomfortable because she snaps and he then starts trying to prove himself till she falls, or it would be one of those suddenly he’s serious moments in the middle of a battle or mission and she’d see him differently. I don’t think it would last though, not at all. Whether my Artemis point in a later paragraph is the reason or just they realise they don’t click perfectly and not all teen romances last forever (which would be a good message tbh)

I’m taking secret spies of the light to mean they aren’t part of the team at all and a team the group clash with, which would be so interesting to see.

Superboy would be a big gun to fight but since Batman has connections to Kryptonite, Robin should have it covered. The debate would then be that Superman would want him brought to the right side and wouldn’t necessarily be okay with Kryptonite just being used out there. He would probably try and talk Conner over to the right side which would plant doubt in Conner’s head but wouldn’t work completely. 

If Artemis was fighting for the Light, I imagine her to be similar to the way Cheshire is, the flirting and mind games. I reckon Wally and her would probably have a similar chemistry, where she’s undercover somewhere, he flirts, she’s revealed as evil and he takes it a personal declaration of war - meaning whenever they meet there’s that tension and his game goes off a bit because he doesn’t know what to do. She is his to take down. She still has her show spunk and attitude that would probably get her in trouble with the Light a few times. That added with Icicle Junior would be fun because ice countering speed. Wally realising he needs to let the team help him and stop focusing on just Artemis.  

(I’m coming up with like a full story idea now so thank you lol)

Garth and Kaldur would also be a personal fight - whether Tula or just Aqualad chose you and lied to me fight (probs both). I could also see Garth being goodish at leading but I still feel like it would probably fall mainly on Dick 

M’gann and Robin would have the least personal conflicts till M’gann tries to go in Conner’s head and see’s the pain he’s in and makes it her mission to help him.

I like to think the teams would end up working together to bring down the Light because I’m all for redemption arcs plus learning to be one team and trust each other would be awesome. 

Sorry if this is full of grammar and spelling errors + longer than expected, I’m writing this very late. Interested why you wanted to know though and what your own opinion is 😊

[lookatthisdork]

Case Study: Cassandra, Damian, and Tim

I read Batman: Gates of Gotham just now because my library happened to have it and it actually includes Cassandra (!). It might also be the last substantial appearance of Cassandra/Black Bat in the Post-Crisis canon (!!!). Naturally, I have to wax poetic about it with panels and long diatribes concerning batsibling relationships.

Context: Gates of Gotham (GoG) is a five-issue limited series published in May 2011, making it a very late addition to canon before the New 52 launched around September. At least, I’m pretty sure this is a canon story. Scott Snyder got first billing on the cover, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this story was prototyping some of the stuff for the Court of Owls.

But who cares about canonicity when we get Cass, Damian and Tim all interacting in the same book?!

(Quick shout out to renaroo who did a breakdown of Cass and Damian in GoG back in 2016. Go look at it! I’ll be reblogging it before this post as well.)

(TL;DR at the bottom.)

For clarity, our main cast is Dick as Batman, Damian as Robin, Tim as Red Robin, and Cassandra as Black Bat. Stephanie, Jason, and Barbara do not appear; Bruce puts in a very brief cameo at the end.

GoG immediately establishes that Batman and Red Robin are working on an explosives smuggling case together, and within a few pages elaborates Red Robin’s also in close contact with Black Bat. Dick admits he didn’t even know Cassandra was in town until she pops up at home base, which makes sense; Cass at this point in canon operates out of Hong Kong, so Dick has no immediate reason to know what’s she’s up to. Tim, on the other hand, is completely unsurprised; apparently he’s been working the case with Cass before he brought it to Dick’s attention.

So in the very beginning of GoG, we have a three-way team-up that started as Black Bat reaching out to Red Robin, who then contacted Batman. Which, honestly, I think is cool? Cassandra went to Tim first when the smuggling left her territory - I’m already getting warm fuzzies about the implied working relationship.

In the same page as Cassandra’s entrance, we get Damian and this super telling panel:

Now, I’m pretty sure that the way Dick is saying “I’d recommend minding Damian” is implying that this is Cassandra’s first real encounter with the kid. We are seeing history in the making here, folks. Or we would be if Cass hadn’t been reset in the New 52.

Then we get the next page:

Notice all that visual distance between Damian and his siblings in the first panel as well as the way he’s rendered creepily in shadow in the second. It’s a rather isolating composition choice, portraying Damian as the outsider while his siblings are comfortably close together, enjoying a dynamic that existed before he joined the family. No one told Damian to stay back, but no one’s encouraging him to come forward either, so the distance kind of settles in.

I would also like to point out that when one of his siblings does look back towards him, it’s Cassandra, not Dick.

Skipping forward through plot and stuff, we next get Black Bat and Robin watching over the Iceberg Lounge. Whoo, team-up! There’s a lot to parse here.

Robin makes it clear he’s not thrilled with being on the Penguin Protection Detail (makes sense in context) before we get all of this:

Wow, okay, Damian, calm your jets.

Let’s break this down. Damian starts with saying he’s heard about Cass specifically as “Black Bat” and as the one “destined to lead the League of Assassins to glory.” I find it super interesting that Damian focused on Cass’s League connections rather than her career as Batgirl here; is Damian still using the League as a marker of quality and ability like he would have before he was Robin? Or is Damian making an indirect link between himself, the other League kid, and Cass? Could be both...personally I’d say both.

There’s a beat panel of Cass after Damian says that first bit - I included it here because the timing seems intentional. I doubt Cass is super proud of her reputation in the League, so I think the beat is a bit of hesitation, a bit of her wanting to avoid this becoming a proper conversation.

Then we have “I have to admit -- I’m not impressed.” And Cass specifically looks over at Damian rather than ignore him (contrast the beat panel).

The thing where Damian says Cass should stop giving him condescending looks...oh boy. I’m 98% sure Damian is barking up the wrong tree here. Actually, 99.9% sure. He’s reading condescension and hostility where there really isn’t any to be found, and the ensuing defensiveness is causing him to lash out with his own condescending remarks. “I’m not the one Father relegated to Hong Kong. Maybe there’s a reason.” This is both super rude and greatly undersells Cassandra’s skills, but it’s more a reflection on Damian’s own insecurity with his position that this is the insult he throws at a fellow Batsibling.

Cass, for her part, does not engage with the insult. She turns the other cheek, reminding Damian without explicitly reminding him that they’re on a job. That said, her stoic reaction doesn’t necessarily mean that Damian’s dig doesn’t bother her. In fact, I think her next conversation with Tim indicates that it does bother her.

Think about the context - what Cass would have said first - that Tim’s response was “Trust me -- I’ve wanted to kill him more times than I can count.” Granted, Tim is taking his dislike of Damian to it’s logical extreme here, but it sounds like he’s commiserating with a Cass that is more than a little put out by an unwarranted attack on her person. 

Which, leads us right into Tim and Cass in this arc. I’ve only read a little bit of Tim, but I’m getting the impression that he’s the type of person that shit-talks about people he or someone else is angry with (eg Damian) in the company of people he trusts (eg Cassandra). Since Cass is kind of pissed at Damian, Tim shit-talks about him on her behalf - like when one sibling has a bad breakup and the other sibling goes off on a “why I never liked that person” rant. Not the best coping mechanism since it can easily turn into nasty gossip (and that’s still your little brother, Tim), but that’s what he’s doing in this panel. 

And rather than correct him and dismiss Tim’s own very real frustration OR agree with him and feed into the unhealthy dynamic, Cassandra listens without passing a final judgement. Maybe I’m reading too much into her “hm” here, but I’m translating it as “I see what you mean, thanks for sharing” - not a “yes”, not a “no”. Good older sibling middle-ground, basically.

Right after that, we have Cassandra complimenting Tim’s problem-solving skills.

Which? This is so sweet? “It’s what you do. You’ll figure it out.” “It’s part of your niche. And they all know it.” Cassandra has this easy faith in Tim to figure shit out, and Tim’s not quite grasping how deep her faith goes. I will never get over my positive Cass-Tim relationship, okay? More fanworks need to capitalize on this. 

After this there’s some bombs. While Batman deals with his own elsewhere in the city, Robin tries to disarm the bomb in the Iceberg Lounge while Black Bat evacuates. 

He doesn’t succeed, which leads to this:

(Middle panel is Batman - ignore that one)

Two things here: 1) Robin does not want to give up, even when it’s very clear that he’s completely out of time. 2) Black Bat gave him as much time as she possibly could (there’s one second on that clock, guys) before picking up her little brother and bodily removing him.

Aftermath:

This might be my favorite scene with these two. Damian is angry, frustrated, and he feels like Black Bat forced him (allowed him) to fail. Meanwhile, Cassandra reminds him that she doesn’t care about failure because what matters is Damian is still alive. Here’s Damian who had a chance to prove himself, apparently blew it, and is now getting huffy with his rescuer. And here’s Cassandra pinning him to the roof, making him listen as she reminds him that he doesn’t have to prove himself, she loves him and just wants him to live.

Cass is best big sis, is all I’m saying.

And when Damian is at a loss, his default MO is to take parting shots at whoever’s around.

And hey, having Dickbats in this last panel, let’s mention a few things about him.

Here’s his thoughts about the whole bomb situation:

“When I was Robin, I always thought I could be as good as Bruce was. But now...I’m standing in the debris of his tower and I can’t help but thing -- he would never have let it get this far.”

(Dick has a problem with holding himself to impossible standards and building Bruce up in his head.)

And Dick’s thoughts on Tim:

“Even as Tim explains what he found, I can’t stop thinking about how much I rely on him. He’s a better Robin that I ever was. He’ll probably end up being a better Batman, too.”

(Dick’s still putting himself down, but at least we get Dick also having a lot of faith in Tim. Lonely Place of Living disagrees with the Tim-Batman assessment, though.)

Next up, Tim-Damian team-up! They both sound super excited about it [/sarcasm].

Yikes.

In defense of Tim, Damian is in full Undeserved Insult Mode here. We start with Tim’s refute of Damian calling Cass useless, then Damian calls her “spineless, naive and fragile”, and finally we have him calling Tim’s “eagerness to trust” a weakness. That’s three insults in as many sentences, two of which were aimed at a shared sister who Tim trusts and admires. Not to mention Cass saved Damian’s butt not very long ago while reassuring him that his “failure” to disarm the bomb was not his fault.

Damian is a kid, yes, but he’s also mature enough to run around Gotham and exercise judgement about how to balance lives as a vigilante. He really should be held accountable for the stuff that comes out of his mouth, and I can’t blame Tim for losing his cool.

That said, Tim is savage as fuck, holy shit.

“Well, deny it all you want -- but I think we both know the only real reason you don’t like her...is that she’s just one more person your father picked over you.”

Tim has a talent for discerning weakness in a person and exploiting the shit out of it to maximum effect. With Damian, this means using well-placed words to emphasize his feelings of insecurity and inadequacy next to his adopted siblings. It’s fucked up and not constructive at all - pointing out flaws like this doesn’t encourage Damian to change. But Tim doesn’t want Damian to change - he wants him to shut up.

Just look at his responses: a simple denial that Cass isn’t useless, a dismissal of Damian’s mistrust, and a piercing comment on his daddy-sibling issues. The first two responses are not necessarily rude - a sign that Tim’s not actively picking a fight - but they’re not invitations to talk or well-meaning corrections. When Damian says rude shit, Tim shuts him down and isn’t afraid to get nasty back. He has no interest in playing the part of the patient older sibling.

(Cue arguments about whether the onus is on Tim to give a damn, Damian to chill the fuck out, or Dick/Cass/Bruce/an actual adult to sit these two down and reach some understanding. Personally, I think these two need a proper adult.)

That said, both Tim and Damian look out for each other while fighting, so their relationship could definitely be worse.

Coming up to the final issue of this miniseries, Cass and Damian work together to deal with a bigger version of the bomb from last time. The plan involves moving the bomb instead of disarming it. Importantly, Cass asks Damian to trust her and he does, without dissent or hesitation. I see progress!

Finally, Cass visits Tim, who was out of the climax due to a concussion. They have a short heart-to-heart thing, during which Tim kind of blames Damian for blowing up the Batboat while Cass defends that “we kind of did that together.” I don’t feel like posting panels of this scene, but it’s nice enough.

TL;DR: GoG features a rocky but promising start to Cassandra and Damian’s relationship before the New 52 erased it. Damian makes a bit of an ass of himself, but Cassandra has sufficient chill that they end this arc on a good note. I would be looking forward to more if not for the Orphan reboot, I will never not be salty about this.

Cassandra and Tim continue to have a strong relationship, trusting each other both professionally and personally. More people should explore this dynamic, and I’m looking forward to catching up on the canon between GoG and early Batgirl (aka where I actually am in my comic reading).

Tim and Damian continue to bring out the worst in each other. Swear to god, someone needs to just shove them in a closet with a counselor or something.

Generally, GoG was a fun read. Cass is mostly in-character, and I’m a sucker for self-contained Gotham stories with no crossovers and no weird magic/alien shenanigans. I’d recommend it.

[elizas-writing]

Movie Reviews: Justice League

So it finally comes to this. After many films that ranged from okay to complete trash with only one universally accepted success, the DC Extended Universe released Justice League. There was a lot going against this movie with how many duds that came out before and a post-production hell which changed up a lot of the story, especially when Zack Snyder left due to a family tragedy and Joss Whedon took the reigns.

The end result? It’s... good. There are still annoying things which hold me back from really liking it, but I’m more optimistic on the stuff that is done well cause it feels like DC is finally getting on track in making a great comic book movie universe.

Some spoilers to be discussed as I find they are important to explain my ambivalence towards this movie (though... to be honest, if you haven’t predicted the obvious, I’m not sure what else to tell you).

After the death of Superman, the world is left vulnerable to mysterious alien attacks. But the one that threatens to destroy the Earth is the terrifying Steppenwolf, who tried to conquer the planet once before with powerful objects called the Mother Boxes, and he hopes to find the Boxes again to finish what he started. This quickly gains attention of Bruce Wayne (Batman) and Diana Prince (Wonder Woman) as they finally decide to contact the metahumans from Lex Luthor’s files and form a team to stop Steppenwolf. Things get a little messy at first to persuade the likes of Arthur Curry (Aquaman), Barry Allen (Flash), and Victor Stone (Cyborg) to help them save the world, but they eventually come together for the good of the world, and set plans in motion to get the Mother Boxes before Steppenwolf can.

It definitely seems like a busy film with the introduction of three new characters without any origin stories. But surprisingly, they’re still well-developed and very likable without needing a super detailed origin story. Barry and Victor have very short and simplistic backgrounds which really don’t require entire movies to develop. You can very easily pick up on the dialogue and character interactions what their lives are like, and honestly that’s all you need. And it works well with these two given that they got their powers by accident with Barry getting struck by lightning and gaining superhuman speed and Victor dying in an explosion and being brought back to life with cybernetic enhancements.

Ezra Miller is perfect at bringing out the young adult wide-eyed awkwardness of Barry Allen. Despite his questionable life choices, especially using his speed for petty crimes, he does have a heart of gold and making ends meet to get through school to eventually help his imprisoned father. He’s not cut out to be a hero like Batman and Wonder Woman, but he learns to adjust over time and be a valuable member of the team.

Victor, as played by Ray Fisher, comes across as the brooding loner who wants nothing to do with the world, but you totally understand the complex situation he’s in. Not only did he feel like his father should have let him die, but now he has so much information at his fingertips he can barely handle, and it grows every day. And given all the crap Superman went through, who’s to say anyone wouldn’t respond to him with fear? But he’s not a total stick in the mud as he spends more time with the others and opens up and starts to accept himself, cybernetic enhancements and all.

I think the only hero who could have probably done well with an origin story before Justice League would definitely be Aquaman. He’s great to watch (not just as eye candy), and you can tell Jason Mamoa is having a lot of fun being a badass. There are brief mentions of his backstory, but I think it would be nice to see more detail in how he got to where he is. It would make more sense as his arc continues in Justice League, and he finally assumes his proper role as an Atlantean protecting the Earth. I know he’s gonna get a solo film soon, so maybe they’ll address it more then, but it would have been nice to see before making the giant ensemble film.

When I heard Joss Whedon was writing the screenplay and took over post-production after Snyder left, I was incredibly worried. Not just cause I’m not a fan of Whedon’s writing (though that certainly doesn’t help), but I was worried he was going to make this way too much like Avengers and just copy the same stuff he did before. While the story is eerily similar to the first Avengers movie (though when have DC an Marvel not copied from each other, even before film) and there’s a lot of Whedon’s comedic one-liners, it doesn’t really feel like it’s totally copying Avengers.

While Steppenwolf doesn’t have a lot of character development, there is a solid motivation, and the Justice League doesn’t deal with too much silly drama about their differences-- they really try to stay focused at the task at hand whenever they’re on screen. And the film, surprisingly for a DCEU film, moves at a faster pace than normal and doesn’t drag. It’s only two hours! And even though it feels like they skipped some origin stories, they did their damnedest to be sure all the characters and relationships got the proper development so you would care what happens to them. There’s more comedy than usual, but not so much that it feels like a comedy-action flick like a typical Marvel film-- it stays more grounded in the action and drama. And there’s still at least one or two of the typical Zack Snyder big speech moments but they don’t take up too much time, and the story is allowed to be simplistic and just let characters speak normally.

That being said, I did mention there are annoying parts which still bug the hell out of me.

First off, the Amazons show way more midriff than I remember, and you can tell they did not keep the same costume designers. Cause less armor means less likelihood of death, I guess. It doesn’t even look like they tried to keep similar designs.

A lot of the special effects are hit-and-miss and sometimes look way too fake. Stuff like Flash’s scenes are done really well, hell, superhuman speed in comic book movies is always fun to watch. But there were a lot of times where it looks like it should belong in a video game, not a high budget Hollywood film. It really gets hard to be sucked in when I can obviously tell when it’s a 3D model and not the actor.

They also made Batman a giant dick and tried to create conflict between him and Wonder Woman because she basically vanished after Steve Trevor died. Cool Whedon, just couldn’t get your hands on Wonder Woman and not have a man criticize her for having feelings for the first person she ever loved romantically. And let’s be real, Batman of all people is the last one who has any right to criticize Wonder Woman given that a recurring joke around his character is mimicking him screaming “My parents are dead!!” That and in this universe he also lost Jason Todd. Holy shit dude, you should know better than this! I know it gets resolved and everyone else points out Batman went too far, but it was tension that wasn’t needed to begin with.

But even more annoying than that is the big “spoiler”: Superman is brought back to life. Again, if you didn’t see this coming even though he was in almost all of the marketing, I don’t know what to tell you. I give them credit they actually try to give him some character this go around, and he doesn’t distract too much from the new characters, but it tracks back to my biggest problem: We still have to remember Batman v Superman. They had one chance to do the Death of Superman, they did it way too soon before I could even start liking the guy, and I felt nothing. They only just started DCEU, of course they can’t have Justice League if Superman stays dead, therefore he’s going to be brought back to life anyway. Had BvS not come out before this or they at least delayed the Death of Superman, I would honestly love Justice League so much more. But all the dumb choices in that movie are constantly lingering in my head as I watch Justice League and it’s super distracting. There’s no way they can fix it unless they wanted to start their movie universe from scratch.

Also is no one else around the world going to question how Clark Kent and Superman are miraculously alive and not connect the dots that they’re the same person? No? Well, I’m sure there’s going to be an extended version with at least an hour of unused footage where that major plot hole will be explained.

I guess I shouldn’t be too shocked given DCEU’s track run of films. I think trying to not create a disaster like BvS is such a low bar to accomplish now, and they somewhat learned from their mistakes. But I still really liked everything else. I loved the new characters, a superhero team that’s mostly functional, and an easy story to follow that’s well-paced. In many respects, they’re finally getting on par with MCU and will probably only go up from here, and I think I’ll be more excited now to see DCEU films. But it’s not enough to undo the damage of their previous films, and they are stuck with this universe. The annoying parts I mentioned are really annoying, but everything else is too damn good to miss out.

If you’re even the slightest curious to see how Justice League turned out, I guarantee you’ll get a few good things out of it. You just gotta be willing to sit through a little more bullshit. Check it out, form your own opinion, and enjoy some great action.

[billyggruff]

LGBT Representation: Where Marvel Comics Fails and Cartoons like Steven Universe Succeed

I grew up reading comics as a kid. My father was quite the aficionado, collecting decades worth of issues, ranging from Batman to Spider-Man to everything in between. My dad is also a quite the religious man, so he’s not exactly one too appreciate lgbt themes in comics. He also didn’t appreciate me coming out of the closet which resulted in me being homeless for a few years, but that’s for another story. Bottom line, if there WERE lgbt characters in comics before recent years, I didn’t really run into it growing up, as my access to the medium was through my dads collection. I think my closeted self at the time would have appreciated the representation, but then again seeing how they are handling it nowadays, maybe not. 

See, My dad probably would dislike the turn Marvel’s taken in recent years just cause of the fact that there is a lot of gay characters and more progressive themes. I love my dad to death but good lord the man is homophobic af.  MY issue with Marvel’s relatively recent turn is they are doing those things, and they SUCK at it. Quite honestly, Marvel trying to be pro lgbt right now is like the equivalent of that one girl who becomes so excited after they meet you, because the only gay people they know of are on television, and they think that your ass has magic fashion powers just because you like penis.

While my love for their comics has SEVERELY waned with the advent of marvel’s direction with their universe, my love for western cartoons has been rekindled with shows like Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, and Star vs The Forces of Evil. All three of these cartoons have lgbt themes and representation in them, and they do it far better than Marvel Comics on even their worst episodes. 

So what’s the difference between the two? Why does One medium suck at what they are trying to do in my opinion, while the other one has glowing praise from me for their representation? Well I’ll tell you! 

THE CARTOON CHARACTERS HAVE THEIR OWN PERSONALITIES AND MOTIVATIONS:  Much of Marvel’s problems right now is they are taking existing characters like Ice-Man and retooling them into gay characters. In the process, they completely erase their personalities that they’ve developed over decades of lore and insert cliche gay guy personality Number 867 into them instead. I’m not even kidding either.

Here is Ice-Man in his first issue of his own series. They decide to establish who he is by showing him with a Latte’, sassily talking to himself, while he makes an online dating profile on a gay dating site. 

This is obnoxiously bad on a number of levels. Not only is this utterly cliche, it also doesn’t make sense in the realm of Marvel comics. Bobby here is a Mutant, a type of super powered character known for getting hunted down on a regular basis by gigantic robots called Sentinels, as well as anti mutant hate groups and government programs alike. You can’t exactly chill at the local starbucks when you need to be aware of LITERAL DEATH SQUADS out for your head. This whole setup is bad from the outset because it completely disregards who he is in the scheme of the Marvel Universe and boils his character down to a caricature of a cliche gay man, redundancy intended. 

It is made blisteringly obvious from just this first page that the writer doesn’t care who he is as a person, or writing an interesting story. The only thing this writer cares about is pointing out that he’s gay, and isn’t that just great you guys? Look how gay he is, he’s got his little Latte’ and everything! 

Gag me. 

Meanwhile, here is Ruby and Sapphire, aka Garnet.

Much like Bobby, Ruby and Sapphire are also quite familiar with being hunted down for who they are, both as rebel gems and as a taboo fusion who, by homeworld standards, deserve death by shattering. Ruby is a hot headed individual who was taught from the second she emerged from her hole that she was disposable and worthless in comparison to the gems she was tasked to protect. She is just one of many Rubies to Homeworld, their individual personalities and wants be damned. Sapphire meanwhile was taught that her purpose was to only see into the future and give the most favorable intel to her diamond. While she was considered worth more than Ruby and held a higher status, her individuality and her personality was just as disregarded. She was willing to live out her days seeing into the future, never changing, until Ruby changed everything. Although they are hiding out on a remote planet, in danger of being shattered by gem forces at every turn, they continue to fight for the place where they can both be themselves, and where they can exist as the fusion Garnet, who is quite literally a manifestation and allegory of their deep and stable relationship. 

Do you see how much more interesting these children show characters are than mister latte’ sipping Bobby over there? One takes into account who they are in the scheme of the story, has developed personalities for them as individuals, and has motivations that are deeply rooted in the plot of the show. Bobby is making a dating profile cause he’s gay and what else would he be doing in his NUMBER ONE ISSUE, ESTABLISHING WHO HE IS AS A PERSON/SUPER HERO?

“BillyGGruff,” you cry out to your screen “you are just showing two panels for Bobby while giving way more info about Ruby and Sapphire, that’s not fair!” 

Okay then, Here’s two more pages, lets see what this writer conveys about him. 

He’s in the middle of a literal sparring match with a displaced time clone of his, talking about Omega level mutants, and his mind is on how he’s “X-tra hilarious.” How he’d let himself be called Bobert if the dude was hot enough and how he’s never been on a dating site before. 

Do you see how the wrong things are being focused on here? What are Omega level mutants? Why is there a past version of himself here? Someone who hasn’t read comics before wouldn’t have a clue what any of this is about, yet the writer sees fit to gloss over this info, because its not important too their story. That’s not what you should be focusing on, what you should be focusing on is Bobby wants to meet a guy from a gay dating site that he’d let call him Bobert. 

The writing is awful, the characterization is awful, and there is nothing engaging about what is going on in a comic involving a member of a persecuted group of super humans who happens to have god tier ice powers. That is what Omega level mutants are by the way; Mutants who do not have measurable limits to what they can do with their abilities. Not that this will play ANY factor in his story, because who cares about things like that in a superhero comic amirite? 

Steven Universe has lgbt characters looking for a date too actually. Lets see how they handle that. 

 This is Pearl as she appears in the episode Last One Out OF Beach City. Pearl’s personal character arc before this episode is quite an interesting one. Pearl was deeply in love with a gem by the name of Rose. She even left everything of her previous life and became a renegade Pearl, fighting with Rose side by side in a thousand year rebellion, all because she loved Rose that much. Rose did not feel the same way in return however, no matter how much Pearl tried to rationalize this fact away. Eventually Rose got into a relationship with a man name Greg, something that Pearl was intensely jealous over, and that jealousy turned into grief and resentment after this relationship ended up resulting in Rose giving up her physical form so Steven, her son, could live. Pearl, for the longest time, has had a hard time coping with both coming to grips that she wasn’t the one for Rose, and that Rose is gone now, typified with a passionate song of hers called It’s Over Isn’t It. 

Her complex feelings over this one sided love, pining over a relationship that she wasn’t able to have, berating herself for not being able to move on, this is something that someone of any age could understand and feel empathy for. By the time this episode shows up, Pearl has finally let herself move past her grief and loss and try her luck with a night on the town with Steven and Amethyst.

She didn’t go out with the purpose of meeting someone to date mind you, she’s not all of a sudden making a dating profile, she just was going out to have a nice time and be a bit rebellious relative to her usual personality. Its during this road trip that she runs into someone who happens to look a lot like Rose, her former love interest.

Now THIS has some interesting things that relate to Pearl and her personal character development! Is she interested in this woman because she likes a certain look, or is she subconsciously trying to replace Rose with someone who looks like her? Would a relationship between them even work out if her baggage from her previous love seeps into that one? How would she react if this woman has a different personality with different interests than Rose? They don’t have her instantly start a relationship with this woman either, they just introduce her, and they eventually exchange phone numbers. Its an interesting step for her character given how devoted she was to Rose, and I’m looking forward to seeing this mystery woman in the show again, along with all the potential conflict and character development it could bring.

This little side plot with Pearl is so much more interesting and engaging than anything that Iceman comic brings to the table because it is built around Pearl’s character and where she is development wise in the series. Before, Pearl was not ready for dating anyone, but now she has developed and matured enough that maybe, down the line, she could think about seeing someone again, and now she has someones number to maybe make that happen. That is real, that is organic, that is more nuanced than “lol a hot guy could call me Bobert if he wanted too, I’m so X-tra funny and random.”

This children’s show handles lgbt themes with care, respect, and integrates them into the plot seamlessly. The characters have way more motivations than just dating. They have character arcs and flaws that they learn to mature from during the course of the series. They have problems, worries, and motivations that are so much more than some gay stereotype making a dating profile, that it shows how Marvels “representation” is severely tone deaf at best and disingenuous and cynical at worst, because it just says that they think the only thing lgbt care about is that there is a gay person on the page, not what the quality of that character is.

I’m using this Ice-Man comic as an example, but there are many more just like it with very little in the way of conflict, completely ignoring who they are as characters and what they mean in the scheme of the marvel universe, and devolving them down into cookie cutter, sitcom, paper thin versions of what they THINK an lgbt person is, probably just so they can point at these trash comics and brag about how progressive they are, and how they are representing gay people like me.

They aren’t though. The only thing they are representing is how little they actually care about writing an interesting story, and how they only seem to want to use these comics as a means of patting themselves on the back for how progressive they are for showing a stereotype gay man making a dating profile. Thankfully there are people like Rebecca Sugar in the world to show these hacks how LGBT representation is really done. 

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

oh! I'm surprised (mainly 'cause Yusuke and Futaba are two of my favs) but ye a post explaining it would be nice. Could it be under a read more if that's alright though?

(Sorry for taking so long had to rewrite 2 of them ;w;)

*inhales* Ok, Ipromised myself I wouldn’t say anything unless someone asked me. So here we go.;w; Don’t worry I was gonna put it under a cut anyways. XD Beware, it’s gonnaget a bit negative and there will be endgame spoilers so yeah. 8U (alluding to this post btw) (note: I rewrote this and the endgame spoilers are only in the Goro section, the rest are about beginning tomidgame spoilers and I tried to keep the vague)

(also you don’t have to agree with me, and I’m not being negative just to be negative, someone asked my opinion and I’m just being truthful. So please don’t send hate)

Ok so like…..it’s not that I hate thesecharacters (hopefully I won’t, but I can’t fully say till the english version),but…..I actually just don’t care about them…. I’m very, VERY apathetic tothem. But I should note that out of all my least favs Yusuke and Futabalook like they could possibly go up when the english version is released (stillwill be ranked under Haru but better than where they are now). I feel like someof these might be because of the fandom or because I really am not happy withhow the game is paced/how it flows….. Also it took so long cause I had torewrite Makoto’s and Goro’s cause it go too heated and negative (probably cause I’ve been bottling this up for months) sooooolkdasnfafnlak;ndfk;a I’mm keep it short and simple

Yusuke: I dunno…..maybe itwas when he was first announced people compared him to Jun. I dunno if it’scause I don’t like Jun or that I don’t like how it felt like they weren’tletting him stand by himself as his own character…. So maybe it’s that Idon’t like his design? (I really do think they should’ve went with thebrowner-haired and long haired version we see in his concept art.) Maybe it’scause I didn’t trust him? Judging by the concept art (when it was more roughsof him) he seemed a bit shady…..maybe he was originally going to be thetraitor? Maybe it’s just that I don’t like how the fandom views him… Maybeit’s all these things…I can admit I didn’t like him when he was firstannounced. When I got the game tho? I did like his arc, not as much as thefirst arc (no really that arc really leaves an impression) but it was a goodfollow up and is like maybe my 2nd fav in the game (and cause of hisarc I feel like I do have the potential to like him more). And then…I dunnowhat happened…it’s like he dropped off the face of the earth! When they weretalking in-game during the plot related things after the 2nd dungeonI would catch myself thinking “Oh yeah he exists! I forgot!” I legitforgot this kid existed. I don’t really recall him doing anything worthwhileeither (maybe what he contributed in the discussions was big? I dunno, it feltlike everyone else was talking a lot and contributing and not him as much? thisis something that the english ver will clear up for me tho so my opinion willprobably change, this isn’t a reason why I don’t like him…I just….didn’tnotice).  I know what you’re thinking “Well what about his CoOp? How couldyou forget he existed if he had a CoOp!” Well……I… didn’t…..do it….. 8UCause he wasn’t a character I cared about still, and I was focusing on eithermy stats or CoOps that I deemed more important (like best in-game benefits andwho I actually liked) or could do. So yeah…..Though, all this being said, Ireally do like his interactions with Futaba tho, maybe it’s cause he’s probablythe closest in age to her,or maybe it’s cause they’re both odd. I kinda ship them. 8U He’s really theonly one I do ship her with. >.>  This is a good segue into…

Futaba: I dunno, she alsorubbed me the wrong way when she was first announced (actually her and Haru andMakoto all did….). I dunno she was very “waifu bait-y” when I first sawher. And…..now…..she still kinda does, but more on the “littlesister-siscon kinda bait.” She really does feel like a little sister toeveryone except Yusuke and Makoto (Makoto is more like her mom tbh). And so herromance really……feels almost like I’m romancing Nanako tbh, and the factyou can view how she falls for you asa way of “tricking her” (not my words, just repeating what I heard someoneelse say), so that doesn’t really sit right with me either….And the fact thatshe’s been listening in on you for months…..is……yeah…… I think weshould’ve had a CoOp  with her at thestart of the game that was similar to the Hermit in P3 (it hits a roadblock atsome point of course and opens up again after plot stuff happens), we insteadare her online friend and she gets close to use that way. Maybe she does hackto find out location but she doesn’t….you know….bug our place. I dunno someof the things just doesn’t sit right with me. But her backstory does seeminteresting, so that might have me like her in the englishversion….. “So did you do her CoOp?” Didn’t do anything past rank 1 tbh(ok maybe rank 2 or 3, I had some free time before the game ended)…. Statusreasons was the main reason, but again….like Yusuke….didn’t really care(tho I got farther in Yusuke’s CoOp I think).

Makoto: Let’s be honest, shedoesn’t even need to be here. She’s only here cause of her sister Sae, and tbhI’d rather have Sae be on the team. We know the MC was originally going to livewith or next to Sae in the early versions, I bet Makoto wasn’t even conceived backthen. It’s only when they moved the MC they decided that Makoto might beneeded, and even then they could’ve gotten around her and still go stuff done.Nothing Makoto does is that important that another character could’ve done. “Butshe found Haru! That’s what the wiki says” (might have changed) No…..She didn’t,Anne found Haru in the book. Makoto just accompanied the MC to confront Haru….whichyou didn’t really need anyone could’ve done that. “Oh but she’s the strategist ofthe group!”  So? Tbh why is she the strategist?What gives her the authority to be that? Cause she’s smart? Guess who else issmart? Hifumi. And guess what, she’s more of a strategist than Makoto. The gameshe’s a pro at is more is grounded in strategy. And guess what, she wasoriginally going to be on the team too. It would’ve made more sense to haveHifumi on the team than Makoto.

Tldr; She’s unnecessary/doesn’tneed to be there, her role could be removed completely or just filled by anyoneelse. 

Goro: Sigh…..short andsweet….short and sweet. I don’t care about him and his struggles. 1)  we don’t see it, it’s only alluded too (P5’sshow don’t just tell thing was so strong with the first two dungeons and Futaba’swas decent too, and Haru’s problems with her fiancé was shown and you felt forher too despite her being thrown in last second). They already did this withSho and Adachi (Adachi was kinda lost in translation, and Sho was just not toldtoo well but still they’re retreading). Like I have to rely on what I saw withthe other kids to feel for Goro instead of Goro himself. And speaking of that2) he has more in common with other characters than the MC (like Yusuke, and/orAnne/Ryuji)…..which really sucks considering he’s supposed to be the duality tothe MC (like Adachi-MC, Sho to Adachi/MC, Ryoji to MC, Takaya to MC ect), yesit’s not uncommon for other teammates to have duality with the antagonist(Adachi-Yosuke/Naoto, heck the Adachi-Yosuke really parallels Goro-Yusuke)….but…..whatabout MC-Goro????? They really don’t have much in compare and contrast going onimo. 3) He doesn’t even feel like one who fulfills a detective role in aPhantom Thief thing (ex Batman to Catwoman, Carmalita Fox to Sly Cooper, ToshioUtsumi to Hitomi and her sisters, Ganimard/Zenigata toLupin/Lupin the 3rd, etc you get the point), if anything Sae is the one who fulfillsthat role more (bonus points she’s pretty much Naoto in this game, who alsofulfills this role). 4) I never felt like the team felt connected to him….likethey knew he was a snitch and they never really treated him well imo, so himbeing like “I’ll help you out and sacrifice myself” doesn’t really make a wholelot of sense. I mean if he had been on your team longer that would’ve made alittle more sense, but they didn’t like him before or after joining the teamtbh…. So why should I feel connected when the rest of the team doesn’t reallyeither (heck the fact you can be so freaking mean to him as the MC AND STILLrank up really doesn’t make sense). :/

Tldr; He’s not reallywell written compared to everyone else (as well as other past antagonists), and he doesn’t make sense.