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celaenaeiln · 1 year ago

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I literally can't take it anymore. I need to get this out of my system. This is a hate-rant about why almost every single thing Tom Taylor has written is wrong.

First and foremost is the bimbofication of Dick Grayson. Tom Taylor loves to write him like this idiot who doesn't think at all. Being cheerful does not mean being dumb.

Nightwing (2016) Issue #79

"You seem unusually contemplative"? All Dick does is contemplate!

Nightwing (1996) Issue #3

His mind is always running!

Nightwing (2011) Issue #13

Nightwing (2016) Issue #38

I just picked a random issue from all of these comics and in every single one of these, Dick's planning, thinking, and strategising constantly.

Tom Taylor literally treats him like he's stupid or something.

Also the degradation of his abilities

Nightwing (2016) Issue #79

A vigilante for 20 years. Who has faced assassins, hitmen, psychos, surprise attacks, metas, and you're telling me he didn't know that a untrained kid snuck up and stole from him?

He forgot who he was, he didn't forget where he lived! Even when he was Ric Grayson, Dick had procedural memory. His battle instincts stayed with him.

Nightwing (2016) Issue #52

"Then...I didn't even know what I was doing. I took him down--took him apart in seconds."

This man is a vigilante machine when he was amnesic. Why the heck would Dick ever let his guard down?

His robin reference

Nightwing (2016) Issue #92

Even Bruce in Batman: Hush has said it-Dick was the best. His skills were the best of anyone he's witnessed which is one of the reasons why Bruce let him be Robin in the first place.

This scene is so wrong that there's a robin scene that came out before this in direct opposition of this Tom Taylor Shitshow.

Robin & Batman Issue #1

This was actually pre-robin. Bruce had him do a solo-trial run to see his skill before he made him Robin and this was the result. Compare that to Tom Taylor's scene and the result is humiliating. For Taylor.

Tom Taylor's version of trying to show that Dick loves the people comes off as him hating crime-fighting. RIP the whole Robin firing drama and Nightwing birth i guess.

Nightwing (2016) Issue #79

"We could have avoided all of this if we'd just stayed in and eaten kibble."

Nightwing (1996) Issue #3

Dick would rather die than stop crime-fighting. After Blockbuster's first attempt, his life was hanging on by a thread and he still continued crime fighting.

Nightwing (1996) Issue #91

After Blockbuster blew up his apartment, this is the single-minded determination Dick had to continue crime-fighting. This is him at one of the worst lows of his life but he refused to give up but now? He has everything and Dick wants to ignore the murder of a child to stay inside and eat kibble which - what the heck? I know he's seen as a happy character but him finding dog-food desirable is too far!

Also the idiocy of which Tom Taylor had Barbara calling the cops in Bludhaven for a stolen wallet. Newsflash! This isn't her first rodeo here.

Nightwing (2016) Issue #81

Nightwing (2016) Issue #24

Nightwing (2011) Issue #23

Given how Dick's easily defeated enhanced metas and "very good" fighters, him falling down the stairs is a little to absolutely impossible to believe.

Another thing I love about Dick that Tom Taylor deciminates is his grace. Dick is the most graceful person in DC. His balance easily matches Selina's enhanced cat powers.

But yet. You have.

Nightwing (2016) Issue #83

Nightwing (2011) Issue #23

yeah. okay.

Taylor's motorbike scenes of Dick make me so mad. The boy is a pro at crazy. It's one of his best traits because he does the wildest stunts and he pulls it off.

Nightwing (2016) Issue #93

Nightwing (1996) Issue #86

He lands on his feet. He grabbed a villain mid-air, crashed into a window, and was perfectly fine. Actually no, he's not fine because he's worried about his bike's paint job.

Nightwing (2011) Issue #24

He just sailed over a whole crowd of people and started kicking butt like what he just did wasn't extraordinary - which for him is just another tuesday.

Nightwing (2016) Issue #95

yeah, tell 'er Dick.

He doesn't need someone to hold his bike.

One of the worst things in Taylor's run is how Blockbuster went down. It suddenly reminded me of Selina's stupid ideology which is why I think I got so ticked off.

Nightwing (2016) Issue #96

Blockbusters' thugs loyalty to him isn't a make it or break it deal. He's one of strongest criminal organisations and the knowledge that he owns one of the worst prisons that he could easily put his underlings into would've instilled fear into his thugs, not freedom. Furthermore Blockbuster takes good care of his people that don't piss him off. He teamed up with Nightwing in the scarecrow era in Nightwing (2016) because someone was messing with his people. He's extremely intelligent and superstrong, and he's not just going to be brought down by the knowledge that he owns a prison. It's Bludhaven. If he didn't, then there would be something suspicious given that he runs the city. It's the way Taylor dumbs down Bludhaven's villains that gets to me. Imagine him writing Batman (2016). It's like saying, "yeah the Joker was just a little misguided but he found the right way again after a stern talking to by Batman."

Nightwing is a big name.

When Dick first came to Bludhaven, one of the police officers was like we don't want your crazy here or something. Also Bludhaven loves Nightwing. They want him.

So why is everyone pretending like they don't know who he is?

Nightwing (2016) Issue #90

The police, the citizens, the villains-all of them. Dick fought Brutale and beat the crap out of him way back in 1996 comic. He's a Bludhaven regular. Just because Dick forgot who he was doesn't mean anyone else forgot him. Amnesia doesn't work that way.

Nightwing (2016) Issue #54

A whole team of Nightwings were formed during Dick's amnesic period because of how badly he was needed and missed. It's almost like the Tom Taylor run is set in an alternate universe.

I ran out of image space but what the absolute fiddlesticks is up with Dick being scared to jump. It better be a manipulation tactic but at this point I think Tom Taylor doesn't even know that Dick is manipulative.

#dick grayson #nightwing #barbara gordon #batgirl #blockbuster #ric grayson #bludhaven #tom taylor #when's the next writer coming in

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river-bottom-nightmare · 3 years ago

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Nightwing 83 Review

guess who isn't weeks late this time. my opinion of the series is going up a little bit. it's still not great, but i'm not actively put off by it anymore the way i was after 81. not going to tag as spoilers, but be warned that they are under the cut

i’m sure you all are well aware of this but now, but dear god i love bruno redondo’s art. like, an unhealthy amount. the pink and blue is getting to be a theme with either him or just this run, but i am definitely enjoying it. the movement in this cover is clearly obvious, but well done. you recoznize right off the bat that the cover was drawn to drag your eyes down the page until you get to the bottom, but you enjoy the whole ride there.

also, redondo’s way of drawing a character in stages of action so we can see just how much they’re doing in a split second of movement is quickly becoming something i like to see drawn with dick, and any other character that has that sort of ease of movement and body sense, like cass or sin or maybe a super.

and he’s in action the entire time! there’s shot drawn just to show off a shirtless comic book character, the way nightwing is so often subjected to. he’s shirtless because he’s changing his clothes, and that’s all we see, no more and no less. very practical, very well done. i like it.

he looks so cute right here oh my god. the little squint, the hair curls. it’s adorable.

but also like. unless melinda has specifically outfitted the door spyhole so that the person on the other side can’t see dick looking through it (and in all honesty she might have) then everyone on the other side can see dick looking through that door.

bringing your attention back to the “i can’t see melinda’s fbi file oh no!! it’s redacted!! whatever can we do!!” stupidity. redacted files are child’s play for oracle, and definitely doable for both dick and bruce. so that’s bullshit.

now, melinda apparently grew up with the maroni family, then took down part of the family from the inside. the maroni family is a large and notable presence in gotham, one that bruce pays a respectable amount of attention to. he definitely would have grown suspicious when two members of the maroni family were taken down, and with some investigation, he would have discovered melinda’s plan. and it should go without saying that the majority of things you see batman doing? dick can do it too.

it’s not so much that i don’t like how clever the villains/antiheroes are getting. i don’t like how dc heroes are increasingly written as less intelligent. they seem to be relying on pure fighting skills or luck, which may be the case for a couple heroes, but has never been the case for most of dc’s big name heroes, the bat family included. it’s irritating to me to see this sort of stuff pop up as a major plot point when i know that, if dick or bruce had been written with the amount of skill and power that they canonically possess, this entire mess would have been sorted out years ago.

unrelated but dick and melinda have the same hair

this may just be me, but i was always under the impression that dick doesn’t really have a “double life???”

yes, he’s talented enough to create enough differences between robin/nightwing and dick grayson’s mannerisms, way of movement, voices, and speech patterns so that it’s very difficult to put the two together.

but nightwing has never been separate from dick grayson, not the way bruce and batman is. he’s always leaned more towards clark in that aspect: his hero persona is an exaggerated, stately, larger-than-life version of who he really is. there’s no second persona, no real “dick grayson identity” and “nightwing identity.” they’re the same person with the same goals, ideas, and skills. one just pretends to abide by the law, and one gives up pretense of that.

oh good thank god. if he’d trusted her right off the bat (hehe. bat.) i would have slapped him upside the head. at least he’s still got instincts.

gosh the colouring on this is cool. the red has enough purple and pink tones to it that it doesn’t abruptly ruin the tone of the artwork. but it’s definitely glaring enough to take the reader outside of this personal moment they had slipped into between dick and melinda, to put them back in the present where they’re reminded that oh yea there are people hunting dick down.

the next panel keeps this up too, in a less severe way. melinda’s bodyguard shows up (i forgot her name sorry :[ ) and subtly places us in the middle of an action scene rather than a private, personal scene.

laughing so fucking hard have our little vigilantes grown so accustomed to breaking into places that it doesn’t even register as a crime anymore??? tim coming in through the fire escape to pick bernard up for their date and being very much confused as to why bernard is freaking out.

i really like melinda’s shirt and now despite all the work i have to do and the fucking conference i have to host on monday i want to spend hours scrolling through clothing shops online trying to find this shirt. the mock neck/neckline is so cool i want it

so roland just assumes that a very dangerous vigilante who is highly talented in combat and a very dangerous bodyguard who is also highly talented in combat had a fight that ended with this very dangerous bodyguard being tied up and she looks completely fine? roland just assumes that her having no visible wounds or bruises means that they got into a fight and she lost that easily? uh. aight then

dick what are you doing. legitimately what the fuck are you doing. why are you posing oh my god. you are injured and tired and in absolutely no position to go hand to hand with one of main enemies. jesus christ run away or head to lower ground or something. don’t just stand around letting the floodlights show exactly where you are.

i don’t understand what he’s trying to do here??? blockbuster fully bought the story that dick fought them both, won, tried to get info out of them and failed, then hightailed it out of there. he didn’t have to draw roland out for a fight.

but it does look cool. the way the light just highlights his silhouette and the blue parts of his costume does look badass. he does get style points in my book for this.

w h a t d i d i f u c k i n g t e l l y o u , d i c k ?

very classic superhero line and it does sound like something dick would say in a fit of righteous rage but also it makes me laugh so hard because all vigilantes think they’re so powerful that the law doesn’t apply to them. dick vigilantism is illegal. you’re acting above the law and pretending it doesn’t apply to you. hypocritical much?

it happens so often in superhero movies, tv shows, comics, whatever and it makes me giggle every damn time.

pretty decent comeback but before i start seeing people writing blockbuster as a thug i’m going to remind you that he made a deal with a demon for genius level intellect. if this turns into another bane situation i’m going to be a little miffed. he’s a smart man, which makes him a dangerous and infinitely more interesting enemy for nightwing.

this is so horribly in character i want to scream. (or. at least. it lines up with one of the versions of nightwing i have in my head.) he’s running right towards the bullets, miraculously doesn’t get shot, while making a sort-of pun. i hate this so much. i love him.

this is cool. this art is really really cool.

he leaped from a building right towards a helicopter that’s actively shooting at him, but none of the bullets are touching him. none of the corruption of the city can touch him no matter how hard it tries, because he’s too good to be corrupted. Comic Book Logic Can Be Good Sometimes Actually.

batman’s belt what??? swiss army knife who?? sorry, i only know nightwing’s bright blue escrima.

this is one of my favourite things about heroes with exceptional abilities, even more so if the hero is human. the things they can do are so far beyond the realm of normal human abilities that it’s equal parts terrifying and awe-inspiring every time they act.

he just used modified grappling wires to hook to the door of a moving helicopter, swung around the helicopter safely without hitting the blades, gained exactly the right momentum to swing upward again right through the opening of helicopter, then fought and tied up the men before they had any idea what was happening. that’s near impossible to do.

it’s stuff like this where i just sort of sigh in contentment. no matter how many times they leave out dick’s detective skills or conveniently forget that he’s actually a master planner and team leader and make him out to be this forgetful dude who makes everything up on the fly because of his “circus roots,” at least they won’t ever take away dick’s sheer physical ability honed to perfection.

the art, too! in a few panels, dick’s drawn a little lightened or blurred. he’s moving so quickly and fighting so efficiently that he can barely be seen by the enemy. he’s got perfect form all the way through.

and THIS!

there was a helicopter that had five men shooting at him with what looks like machine guns. most people would be dead. some would run away, and be nimble enough to survive without fatal hits. there are very few people, even in fucking comic books, who can look at that hopeless situation and turn it around so quickly and thoroughly that he benefits from it instead.

i just. love nightwing.

it was funny the first time as a comic reader aware of the meme. it’s really not anymore. why the hell would you, in universe, be wearing a shirt that has a picture of your boyfriend being hit in the face by his father.

okay that was funny.

look at lil bitewing, so concerned for her human!!! love her sm.

also a question as to the timeline of things. is nightwing happening before or after urban legends?

i was so distracted by dick wearing a robe and briefs and nothing else that i didn’t register the second part until later. he slept for two days?? babs, baby, he recently had a very traumatic brain injury. why do you sound so nonchalant?

@TIM X COFFEE SHIPPERS GET FUCCCCKKKKEEDDDDD

ngl i totally forgot about that dude oops

this comic is giving so many reaction pictures. you know how you always use the worst possible picture of your friend for your friend’s contact picture? i’m just getting so many of these.

leslie!!! the titans!!! lucius!!! dick going to go see old friends!!!! the titans!!! this part made me so irrationally happy it really did. gar being the one to just. offer dick solutions with open arms. this was the best

i wish i could just copy and paste this entire scene, but that would take up way too much space, so i’m just going to talk about it instead.

you gave me my name, nightwing, and you gave me some of the best advice i’ve received in my life: beautiful little throwback to nightwing’s origin. you’d be surprised at the amount of people who don’t know where the name came from, or who don’t know how much clark means to dick. and the fact that dick still looks up to clark as a hero, recognizes that clark isn’t always perfect and yet continues to hold him in such high esteem, and still looks back on advice that clark gave him fondly just warmed my heart so much.

for a man who has fearlessly stood up to darkseid, bruce will do a lot to avoid a conversation: “grrr. i’m the BATMAN. i’m so DARK and MYSTERIOUS. nobody knows the true me. no one ever will. i will be LONELY for the rest of my CURSED LIFE. such is the price of a hero. ignore my farmer himbo husband in the background”

but i don’t think there’s anything heroic about being a billionaire: another nod to how much dick follows clark’s example rather than bruce. yes, this was a very poignant and important criticism, and i think it’s wonderful that this was published in a pretty popular comic book. but the thing is, there is a way to be a heroic billionaire, but only in fictional universes. the way bruce, ollie, t’challa only ever use their wealth to help people. they donate massive amounts of money to charities that they themselves create so they know exactly how the money is being used. they hire people who aren’t likely to get jobs anywhere else and pay them much more than what a base living wage is. they use their power to help push progressive laws and social change. they are helping.

dick doesn’t fully see it that way. he spent more than half his childhood the son of a billionaire, but still believes that one could be more heroic when one doesn’t have obscene amounts of wealth. whose example do you think he followed to come to that conclusion?

superman looked up to alfred pennyworth?: i mean yea alfred may have been a wildly irresponsible guardian and one hell of an enabler but goddamn if he didn’t love his kid.

you don’t need my input. you’ve thought it all through: ooooooh this line made me grin. for so long, dick’s treated clark as a mentor and a guiding figure. he’s still seen as a kid, an up and coming, snot-nosed titan with dreams of a better world. clark still thinks of him as a kid, despite watching him grow up. but this little line was something i think dick needed sorely to hear. he doesn’t need anyone’s guiding hand on his shoulder, he doesn’t need to ask for permission. he doesn’t need clark to support him the way he did when he was a teenager. he’s all grown up now, and he doesn’t need clark’s help. i imagine it was a bit of a surprise for dick to hear that.

honestly, i couldn’t think of a better role model: ohhh but it doesn’t stop there. clark just straight up turns the tables on dick. imagine you’re dick, and you’ve looked up to this one hero your entire life, and then one day he turns to you and says that he thinks you’re so kind and smart and worthy of a person that he wants you to mentor his son!? goes to show just how much clark trusts dick.

i swear to god dick probably cries every time he hears clark compliment him because bruce is so rare and sparing with his praise that clark giving him the slightest hint of approval is just a dopamine rush.

also, now deathstroke and superman have both asked nightwing to mentor their kids. the juxtaposition is fuckin hysterical. imagine either of their reactions when they realize what kind of company they’re with

lets talk colours for a second, because i absolutely adore how classic colour tropes have been subverted in this comic, and in this general run really.

warm tones have usually (usually, not always) been associated with light and comfort and friendship and,,,,,well,,,warmth. whereas cool tones are usually used to unsettle, or make a scene seem colder and put the reader on edge. this varies if a comic only uses cool tones, or only uses warm tones, but if a comic uses both, this is generally well-used.

that isn’t the case in this run.

dark red, orange, and other warm tones have been used to symbolize danger, action, attacks. hot pink isn’t usually included in this colour group, but it’s definitely part of it in this case. in contrast, scenes that have cool colours give us the impression of slipping into a comfortable, calm scene with babs, tim, the titans, and other allies. even the beginning scene with superman has this blue, but then it transitions into something more golden coloured. dawn broke over dick, as his new idea came to light, and that was reflected in the art (and the sunrise setting.)

have there ever been times when dick’s longed for the comfort of his mask because he didn’t feel confident as dick grayson? i can’t think of any. i may be wrong, but this struck me as pretty ooc.

am i just??? gay and reading this all wrong??

cause i was under the impression that when someone says they are grateful for your friendship you don’t immediately kiss them.

or is this like. normal straight mating rituals.

i mean he’s smiling afterward but still babs aren’t you supposed to at least make sure it’s okay first? you guys broke up a while back after you said something along the lines of “i want to be coworkers with you and nothing more because i don’t trust you or feel comfortable around you as a civilian anymore.” like lmao after you say something like that to someone i would assume that you don’t have the permission to just kiss them whenever you want.

show of hands who else got real sad when they realized dick was talking about himself in this.

sure, he could be referencing the things he’s seen blockbuster pull, and the children on the streets. but “i’ve seen money used for enforcement,” sounds a little too close to dick’s entire life being destroyed by one man threatening the circus to pay protection money for me to completely ignore. and “i’ve seen the poorest and most vulnerable blamed and punished rather than assisted” becomes a lot worse when you remember dick was thrown in juvie for a couple months until bruce was able to obtain legal guardianship, and in there, not a authority figure believed him when he told them his parents were murdered.

he’s lived this before.

a. mother. fucking. typo.

fucking why

i mean i’ve stated my distaste for the batfamily groupchat before but like. this is reaching new levels of ridiculousness. jason sounds like he was written by a fanfic writer. tim sounds like he was written by a fanfic writer. steph sounds like she was written by someone who doesn’t know the first thing about steph and wanted to include her for “family points!!!!!” damian’s supposed to be completely off the grid, and everyone’s searching for him. i do love the way cass texts tho.

well god fuck now i’m crying

dick got a phone call, a sorry, and a thank you out of bruce. i feel so much secondhand happiness for him, if that’s a thing. we’ll just ignore the way bruce looks ugly af and focus on the good parts okay?

and again with the colour symbolism here!

i’m either going to love this or hate this. who knows, we’ll see.

something something hearts something something pink is an evil colour something something. i need to know more about this guy but there’s definitely symbolism there.

is it just me or does this dude look like the backstabbing traitorous absolutely motherfucking piece of shit villain that killed tadashi hamada in big hero 6?

taggggg list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @anothertimdrakestan @subtleappreciation @screennamealreadyused @bikoncon @pricetagofficial @catxsnow @maplumebleue-blog-blog @sundownridge @thatsthewhump @xatanna-troy @red-hood-redemption @capricorn-stark @batshit-birds @comics-observer @buticaaba

#river thinks too hard #nightwing #dick grayson #nightwing 83 #dc #nightwing review #nightwing meta #dick grayson review #dick grayson meta #nightwing 83 review #nightwing 83 meta #dc review #dc meta

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ectonurites · 3 years ago

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I feel like TT should be taken off bat books entirely his dialogue is a bit cringe and that fridging joke he made Babs make was just nasty.

No truly that ‘fridged’ thing pissed me off soooooo bad in the recent issue.

Like, when out of the multiple people currently writing Babs in ongoings, you’re the one getting like the most flack for your portrayal of her specifically because of how you approach stuff regarding her disability… making a tongue-in-cheek reference to the name of the trope used to describe the situation she became disabled in the first place is just in very poor taste. It was cringey, it was an awkward sentence, and was unnecessary.

For context/explanation, during the most recent Nightwing issue Babs gets briefly captured by kidnappers who put her in a refrigerated van, which she then tells Dick and Wally about, and at one point phrases things like this:

“Nightwing. They’re after you. They’ve fridged me to get to you.” (Nightwing (2016) #90)

Now, even beyond my above complaints about this, there’s a whole other level that makes this stupid: ‘Women in Refrigerators’ is a trope named after an event that occurred in-universe (the murder of Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend Alexandra DeWitt). Like yes Babs is literally in a refrigerated van… but ‘fridged’ is not a real word when detached from the ‘Women in Refrigerators’ trope. It’s not in the dictionary, it’s a term that only exists in a specific context- and the way she’s using it here fits the use for the ‘Women in Refrigerators’ trope. Plus a panel earlier she already explained she was in a refrigerated van, it’s not like this is the way she’s introducing the concept of a fridge being involved. Saying ‘fridged’ in-universe like this just makes Babs seem like a jerk for casually referencing a tragedy from Kyle Rayner’s life that she, Dick, and Wally all know about.

Honestly, these meta jokes/references in the comic have just gotten more and more distracting as it’s gone on. One or two things like this isn’t inherently bad, but this many just… feels like it’s there to get a reaction on social media, and distracts from the story. This ‘fridged’ one feels most drastic because it’s in text rather than just a visual gag like the others have been, but this is what I’m talking about:

Mug referencing the ‘some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb’ scene from the 1966 Batman film (Nightwing (2016 #80)

T-shirt of the ‘Batman slapping Robin’ meme based on a panel from World’s Finest Vol. 1 #153 (Nightwing (2016) #81, #83)

Shirt parodying the Comics Code Authority logo, that literally has ‘DC Comics’ written on it (Superman: Son of Kal-El #9, yes technically not in the Nightwing run but it was the crossover and still made by Taylor and Redondo)

T-shirt with DC’s logo from 1976-2005 (Nightwing (2016) #90)

All of these from one author’s books within one publishing year is just excessive 🤷‍♂️ Each of the visual ones on their own wouldn’t bother me but this many together does. That plus the fridging joke… just don’t like it. It’s distracting.

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fantastic-nonsense · 3 years ago

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Hi, sorry same person who asked where you got your Batman info. I should have been more clear. What I meant was where do you get your comics? Do you buy them at a brick and mortar store, or a place online? I’m asking because you have singlehanded gotten me invested in Batman, and I have no idea where to find comic books.

Ohhhhh okay, it's all clear to me now! Sorry for misunderstanding, lmao.

First of all, welcome to the fandom, and I am both thrilled and distraught that I've dragged you into this nonsense: good luck, honestly, and I'm happy to help answer any questions you might have as you start learning and reading more.

Second, some helpful terminology and discussion before I actually answer your question, since you're (probably???) new to reading comics altogether:

Superhero comics are traditionally written in what's known as runs; an author gets to have an extended period on an ongoing (or limited) title where they (traditionally) write in 4-8 issue story arcs; think of these arcs as chapters in a potentially never-ending book. These individual issues are colloquially known as floppies. Every so often, titles end, the principal author on the titles switch up, or they'll have "guest/interim authors" come in to do single issues or a single story arc.

These story arcs are then collected in what are known as 'trade paperbacks' (generally referred to as trades, occasionally TPBs), which collects the entire story arc in a single paperback/hardback book. Trades are super useful if you want to read an entire story at one time, want to be economical about your comics spending, and/or want to read things in order. Occasionally, if a writer has a particularly long run on a title or a big company event happens, you get published omnibuses that collect an entire event or run (or part of it, if the event is big enough).

So when I talk about "Tom Taylor's run" on the Nightwing title, for example, I'm talking about the current writer, who's been the main author on the Nightwing title since March and just finished his first story arc ('Leaping into the Light', which starts at Nightwing #78 and just concluded last Tuesday with Nightwing #83).

A pull list is a list of comic books that, traditionally, are set aside each week for you at your local comic book store. It's basically like having a subscription/membership to a particular comic book.

Obviously, traditionally this is a very literal 'pull list' that the shop employees literally pull from the shelves for you, but it's become a more unofficial term in recent years as people buy more and more digital comics. For a lot of people, when they refer to their pull list they really just mean "these are the comics I'm actively reading and consciously keeping up with right now" (my current literal pull list is Nightwing, Batman: Urban Legends, and Wonder Girl, but I keep up with a few others-Robin and Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, for example-via occasional buys, social media, and online reading; mostly, I'm waiting for trades to come out).

So that being said, when I buy comics, I get them from a variety of places:

I do, in fact, have a local brick & mortar comic book store that I get floppies and trades from; I don't usually buy floppies, but when I do, I normally get it from them. LCS's are unfortunately dwindling in number, but if you have one in your area, I highly recommend supporting them!

There's also this huge used bookstore run out of an old warehouse where I used to live (and where my parents still live, so I still get to visit it occasionally) that has a large comics/graphic novel section; I've gotten quite a few of my comics for dirt cheap from them.

Amazon and Ebay are super convenient and awesome places to buy trades; I've bought the majority of the comics I own via this route, tbh.

If you're more into digital comics (space issues, you prefer reading digitally, etc), I get mine from Comixology.

And if you’re dirt poor and can’t afford anything, getcomics.info is a safe site where you can download comics for free.

You can also read them for free (without downloading) at https://readcomiconline.li/, otherwise known as ReadComicOnline. When I do meta or post screenshots, I'm usually grabbing panels from RCO (mostly for convenience's sake).......needless to say, a lot of people read their comics using RCO, lmao.

Like I said, welcome, and let me know if you'd like a few digestable, reader-friendly comics to get started with!

#personal #asks #batman #comics #reference

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dccomicrants · 3 years ago

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Joker: Last Laugh

Content Warnings: Cancer, Murder, swearing (on the part of the author writing the review), honestly probably more but I could not tell you what they are

Summary: The Joker is dying and taking the world with him. Meanwhile, I'm dying because there are glaring inconsistencies and I read all 46 issues only to be left feeling underwhelmed.

Comic Issues Involved: Joker: Last Laugh 1-6 written by Chuck Dixon, Young Justice 1998 #38 written by Peter David, Orion #19 written by Walt Simonson, Azrael: Agent of the Bat #83 written by Dennis O'Neil, Joker: Last Laugh Secret Files #1, Superman (1986-2006) #175 written by Jeph Loeb, Batman: Gotham Knights #22 written by Devin Grayson, Birds of Prey 1998 #36 written by Chuck Dixon, Nightwing 1996 #62 written by Chuck Dixon, Impulse #79 written by Todd Dezago, Batgirl 2000 #21 written by Kelley Puckett, Superboy 1993 #93 written by Joe Kelly, Detective Comics 1937 #763 written by Greg Rucka, JSA #29 written by Geoff Johns, Harley Quinn 2000 #13 written by Kark Kesel, Adventures of Superman (1987 - 2006) #597 written by Joe Casey, The Flash (1987-2009) #179 written by Geoff Johns, Superman: The Man of Steel #119 written by Mark Schultz, Supergirl 1996 #63 written by Peter David, Green Lantern 1990 #143 written by Judd Winick, Wonder Woman 1986 #175 written by Phil Jimenez, Robin 1993 #95 written by Chuck Dixon, JLA #59 written by Chuck Dixon, Batman 1940 #596 written by Ed Brubaker, Action Comics 1938 #784 written by Joe Kelly, The Titans #34 written by James M. Faerber

This whole plotline is all this man's fault. Anyways- more below.

The Joker's Last Laugh is a 6 main issue storyline with 40 tie-in issues. The basic premise is as follows: The Joker is told that he has a massive tumor in his brain and he's dying. The Joker then decides that he's going to take as much of the world with him as he can before he dies.

Some really batshit stuff happens in all 46 issues, and I do mean batshit. Every single villain held in this top security prison called The Slab gets Jokerized and somehow it manages to escalate from there. There is a massive prison break as the meta inhibiting collars are disabled and Jokerized villains now run rampant on the world. And while I could deep dive the plot or every issue I frankly just... do not want to. Its supervillains turned up to 11; frankly it's kinda boring. I mean the whole premise is set up in a way where you cannot really convincingly raise the stakes. It's just... all climax if you're only reading for the Joker.

There are a few interesting little tidbits that come up but they also just aren't worth the effort. What is interesting is following the Bats.

At the very beginning of issue 1, Dick manages to convince Babs to leave her many monitors behind for a while and just have a normal day. While they're out on the date this conversation comes up between them:

The issue with wanting the Joker dead specifically and what does or doesn't make something revenge is a point worth exploring. If you consider why Dick and Bruce both became vigilantes... Babs is right. They did it for revenge. Sure it's phrased as "wanting justice" but what is that if not revenge said another way?

The point Dick is making is that they don't kill, which still isn't the most accurate of statements, and an argument could be made that in the shape they've left some of their villains, death would have been merciful. And even if in their histories up until that point they hadn't killed any of their villains- they've certainly had some very dark runs where they've gotten very close before. Neither here nor there for the moment.

Babs and Dick return from their date to see the Jokerized prisoners on the screens and Babs understandably feels guilty because she looked away once. This guilt obviously stems from her trauma with how she became the Oracle (a post perhaps for another time). Bruce and Dick break into the Slab to try to run damage control and find Dinah, who went in when she saw the original feed. For some reason, there's a supervillain that can make singularities and that's a whole thing I don't even want to get into. Anyways, the Slab is sucked into a black hole, Dick, Dinah, and Bruce barely escape thanks to Ted Kord hanging around in his beetle ship.

Plot continues as plot must. The world has gone to shit. The Joker has some of his Jokerized villains try to kidnap Harley Quinn so he can forcibly impregnate her and that literally never comes up outside of the issue it's introduced it. If you read all 46 issues, the ones that focus on Harley Quinn Never Again Mention That. Instead, it mentions how the Joker just wanted her dead. I can't even be mad at that because It Just Isn't Plot Relevant.

Anyways we finally get a proper follow-up to the conversation of revenge, the only thing that made the whole arc worth reading:

We're going to ignore Dick's gravity-defying hair because... yeah. And we're going to focus on the fact that Dick still firmly believes there's a non-lethal way to handle the Joker. I mean, there isn't because DC won't let him stay dead, but the ideal is something very intrinsic to who Dick is still as a hero at this point. This clashing viewpoint with the reality of the situation is definitively interesting because yes, it wouldn't actually bring closure. Murder is bad. The analysis of the risks of letting the Joker live means that arguably... not killing him is morally wrong. By this point. Thousands have died because of the Jokerized villains, if not hundreds of thousands.

Now admittedly to have prevented this, you have to go back in time and deck the doctor who forged the Joker's test results to make it look like the Clown Bastard had cancer in the first place, but the potential for something like this to have happened was always there. In fact, every time someone has tried to show the Joker that he needed to change his ways it always catastrophically backfired. In a Spectre comic for example, Jim Corrigan discovered that the Joker Genuinely Cannot Feel Remorse. But sure, a cancer diagnosis was going to make him become a model citizen.

Then we discover that the specific compounds that made all the villains Jokerized is killing them. And no one is surprised. Harley is helping with the antidote and again, no one is surprised. It feels like an MCU movie plotline.

Issue 5 we start to get somewhere again that prompts a future interesting exchange. Tim Drake, the current Robin, has gone rogue in all of this and is seemingly eaten by a Jokerized Killer Croc. All Helena can find is Tim's costume shirt under the water next to some bones.

And in issue 6, Dick Grayson snaps. Tim's apparent death pushes Dick off whatever cliff he was hanging onto and suddenly Babs's tune changes:

Up until this point, their roles were reversed. Dick was the one reminding Babs that killing the Joker wouldn't change anything, but this? This is the line Dick had drawn in the sand.

Dick goes to confront the Joker in the church and the two have a fist fight that is very one sided, in the favor of Dick. Dick proceeds to beat the Joker to death, unaware of the fact that Tim is actually alive. His comms just got busted and he had to ditch his costume shirt to escape Killer Croc, aside from a few injuries of course.

Tim shows up at the church to try to stop Dick, and Dick initially assumes that he's hallucinated Tim's presence. When he realizes that it really was Tim, the damage had been done. Now, we don't ever see who actually resuscitates the Joker, but there are only two possibilities with how the frame is set up, Bruce or Tim. It doesn't actually say, but one can infer that Bruce is the one who resuscitated the Joker.

So objectively, Joker lost the fight with Dick, but technically, this was a win for the Joker. The world was flung into chaos, the Bats are all shaken. He got his victory. Even with a death experience thrown in there. But this frustrates me because there's a difference. Dick didn't just set out to kill everyone- he settled on the Joker. If he were to have gone after Tim's "Killer" That should have been Killer Croc, but somewhere in Dick's head he decided that Croc was just another victim, so he went after Joker.

The whole premise of this storyline is that the Joker believed he was dying and decided he wanted to take as much of the world as he could with him. Dick decided that he was going to kill the Joker in a long awaited act of vengeance. The two motivations are not the same yet the emphasis is being placed on the actions- to which case even then it is not the same. The moral standard here is not being applied equally, which is really frustrating.

To end this long rant, Joker: Last Laugh is a mediocre plotline that has only a few good things that make it worth even considering reading, but I'd save the energy for something else.

#dc comics #comic analysis #Dick Grayson #Nightwing #dcu #Batman #Tim Drake #Robin #The Joker #Joker: Last Laugh #Long post #tw: swearing #cw: swearing #tw: homicide #cw: homicide #dc's continutiy innacuracies strike again #comic rant #I probably missed some content warnings but honestly why would you read this

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