#oh man with Jason in recovery during that era and no Tim

[mzminola]

Okay I love the Helena & Cass dynamic, and I love Babs' rage.

I am also stuck on the fun bits of "it’s only on the condition that Jason enrolls in a boarding school where it’s safe" potentially giving us Jason taking all of Tim's Brentwood stories.

Star as a fellow wheelchair user showing him how much fun you can have in a skatepark. Jason making use of school security cameras to figure out the Langstroms are living in the belltower. His first roommate being a prince that's being stalked by a demon. Practicing adaptive swimming techniques with Lagoon Boy, which comes in handy when Danny Temple is kidnapped.

Okay, I'm finally returning to the AU where Jason and Barbara are swapped so that she dies in a Killing Joker and Jason is paralyzed in A death in the family.

The simplest way to set up this AU (and why over-complicate things yet?) is to have it so that when Barbara Gordon opens the door, the Joker shoots to kill. However long later, when Jason is beaten half to death by the Joker, he survives the bomb, but he’s left paralyzed from the waist down. The Doctors say he’ll never walk again.

For now, Barbara Gordon is dead and we shall leave her there. She doesn’t haunt the narrative in the same way that Jason did. She was an adult when she died, removed from her former mantle. She wasn’t Bruce’s daughter. Her death weighs on Gordon, but then Sarah Essen returns to his life and his dead daughter fades into the background. Bruce, Dick, and Jason remember her, but there is no Batgirl memorial in the cave. She is just another symbol of the dangers they face. She comes up in vague aborted references and heavy silences.

(Now that I think about it, in a world where Barbara Gordon’s dead, I bet Helena ends up as Dick’s second primary love interest…)

Meanwhile, with Jason, we have a fairly standard Jason Lives!AU with the slight caveat that he’s in a wheelchair and can never become Robin again.

We’re not going to spend long on that because it could go any number of ways and I don’t want to be here all day, but to his some major points:

A Lonely Place of Dying doesn’t get triggered. Batman without Robin when Jason is paralyzed is worse, but not bad enough for Tim to feel the need to interfere. His parents probably still die in Rites of Passage because Batman is highly unlikely to leave Gotham to chase after some random kidnapping for ransom when he’s being overprotective of his recently paralyzed son. Or just have the Drakes die in a plane crash and skip the racism.

Jason as Robin is a character who doesn’t have many ties outside of Batman. Stuck in a wheelchair, he struggles even more with dilation. Barbara’s dead. Dick’s around more, but he still spends most of his time with the titans. He can’t be Robin and that means that he feels like he can’t be part of that community, losing the few connections he had there. On the civilian front, his injuries lead him to being held back a year. He doesn’t know any of his classmates, and stuck in the hormonal battleground of high school, he acutely feels the way that being stuck in a wheelchair makes him different.

I still need to read Oracle: Year One, but Jason is initially attracted to computers because of the anonymity the internet offers. On it, he can pretend to be normal; people don’t see the chair before they see him. From there, it expands into a way he can still help Bruce and be involved in the mission. Bruce says he doesn’t need to do anything, but with so much of their relationship tied up in being Batman and Robin, Jason wants to.

There is another Robin eventually. Dealer’s choice as to who. You can make an argument for Tim (the classic option), Steph (Girl power + Steph & Jason friendship) or, I don’t know, Lonnie ( I know he has fans, though, in full disclosure, I am ambivalent towards him). Whoever the choice, it’s alternatively important that they have the approval of both Dick, who originated the mantle, and Jason, who left it vacant.

But that’s enough about Jason. You want to know who I really want to talk about in this AU? You guessed it! Helena Bertinelli and Cassandra Cain.

It’s time for No Man’s Land baby~ (absolutely no one is surprised.)

Bruce leaves on an international guilt trip and brings his son with him, much to Jason’s annoyance. It’s over three months before he’s able to convince Bruce to return, and even then it’s only on the condition that Jason enrolls in a boarding school where it’s safe. (Jason is so looking forward to turning 18 when he can finally prove to Bruce that he can take care of himself.)

Meanwhile, Huntress is the sole vigilante presence in No Man's Land. It isn’t long before she recognizes the limits of her own mantle and takes on the mantle of the Bat. In this universe, she is called Batwoman.

It is as Batwoman that she runs into Cassandra, who has been living on the streets of Gotham.

No wait, better idea. Headcanon time: In between acting as two separate vigilantes, Helena also somehow finds the time to run a makeshift classroom for some of the kids stranded in No Man's Land. She recruits them to do odd jobs and in exchange,, she shares some of the food she has stashed wavy and tries to make sure they have at least some education. 

Cassandra is curious and comes first for the food and then for the stories and the reading/writing lessons she doesn’t understand. When she sees Batwoman for the first time and makes the connection, she becomes even more intrigued.

When Batman enters and starts working with Helena, Cassandra saves them both in a handmade costume and ends up as the new Batgirl.

Helena remains as Batwoman after the end of No Man’s Land in this AU. She misses being the Huntress, at the end, but she has Cass to look after now. They grew close in the chaos of No Man’s Land and now the girl’s moved in with her. Helena needs to be better for Cass. She can’t go back to killing because, on one level, Cass wouldn’t let her. On another, she doesn’t want to betray her trust. So she holds the line. She stops her more self-destructive tendencies and tries to do the best for Cass despite the fact that she doesn’t understand her on a fundamental level.

This all leads to her being a more integrated part of the batfam. She's featured in more Bat comics and plays a major supporting role in Batgirl.

Post-No Man’s Land, Jason turns 18, moves off to college, and starts his own Birds of Prey type team. Bruce stalks him, Jason yells at him for it, etc etc.

And now, we’ve arrived at the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Red Hood!Barbara Gordon!

Barbara Gordon’s Under the Red Hood arc is a narrative commentary on fridging and is ideally written by a female author. In this universe, Barbara Gordon was a character who was killed off and vanishes from the narrative. She was a thing pre-crisis but never really a presence post. She is a tombstone next to Sarah Essen. A name mentioned when arguing about the Joker, quickly forgotten to focus on his paralyzing of Jason.

She comes back loud and angry, insisting on being remembered. Look at me, she shouts. Look at my pain. My story should be about me. She sets up a series of circumstances and clues all point to her. To the terrible things that happened to her. Bruce and Gordon have made her death about them, she’s taking it back. Reclaiming it for herself.

She also torments and antagonizes Helena and Cass. They replaced her, they took her place. They don't even know what they've done. They are the first to see her face and they don’t even recognize her. They don’t know the legacy they have claimed. Barbara Gordon rages.

And then, of course, future writers ruin that shining star of an arc by making her ~evil~ and ~crazy~. It’s probably all because coming back from the dead made her infertile and she can’t ever be a mother. Women, am I right? (eyeroll)

Anyway, I want a Red Hood!Barbara Gordon arc now.

[latinotimdrake]

#Jason Todd #if he loses his wheelchair during the kidnapping by Kobra #all the computer hacking and robotics he's been teaching himself come in handy #so that he can hijack their mechs to get around #oh man with Jason in recovery during that era and no Tim #King Snake was probably taken down by just Clyde Rawlins and Lady Shiva #so Jason showing up to rescue Danny and WRECK EVERYONE'S SHIT completely sideswipes him #who the fuck is this kid??? #ahahahahaha

Okay, I'm finally returning to the AU where Jason and Barbara are swapped so that she dies in a Killing Joker and Jason is paralyzed in A death in the family.

The simplest way to set up this AU (and why over-complicate things yet?) is to have it so that when Barbara Gordon opens the door, the Joker shoots to kill. However long later, when Jason is beaten half to death by the Joker, he survives the bomb, but he’s left paralyzed from the waist down. The Doctors say he’ll never walk again.

For now, Barbara Gordon is dead and we shall leave her there. She doesn’t haunt the narrative in the same way that Jason did. She was an adult when she died, removed from her former mantle. She wasn’t Bruce’s daughter. Her death weighs on Gordon, but then Sarah Essen returns to his life and his dead daughter fades into the background. Bruce, Dick, and Jason remember her, but there is no Batgirl memorial in the cave. She is just another symbol of the dangers they face. She comes up in vague aborted references and heavy silences.

(Now that I think about it, in a world where Barbara Gordon’s dead, I bet Helena ends up as Dick’s second primary love interest…)

Meanwhile, with Jason, we have a fairly standard Jason Lives!AU with the slight caveat that he’s in a wheelchair and can never become Robin again.

We’re not going to spend long on that because it could go any number of ways and I don’t want to be here all day, but to his some major points:

A Lonely Place of Dying doesn’t get triggered. Batman without Robin when Jason is paralyzed is worse, but not bad enough for Tim to feel the need to interfere. His parents probably still die in Rites of Passage because Batman is highly unlikely to leave Gotham to chase after some random kidnapping for ransom when he’s being overprotective of his recently paralyzed son. Or just have the Drakes die in a plane crash and skip the racism.

Jason as Robin is a character who doesn’t have many ties outside of Batman. Stuck in a wheelchair, he struggles even more with dilation. Barbara’s dead. Dick’s around more, but he still spends most of his time with the titans. He can’t be Robin and that means that he feels like he can’t be part of that community, losing the few connections he had there. On the civilian front, his injuries lead him to being held back a year. He doesn’t know any of his classmates, and stuck in the hormonal battleground of high school, he acutely feels the way that being stuck in a wheelchair makes him different.

I still need to read Oracle: Year One, but Jason is initially attracted to computers because of the anonymity the internet offers. On it, he can pretend to be normal; people don’t see the chair before they see him. From there, it expands into a way he can still help Bruce and be involved in the mission. Bruce says he doesn’t need to do anything, but with so much of their relationship tied up in being Batman and Robin, Jason wants to.

There is another Robin eventually. Dealer’s choice as to who. You can make an argument for Tim (the classic option), Steph (Girl power + Steph & Jason friendship) or, I don’t know, Lonnie ( I know he has fans, though, in full disclosure, I am ambivalent towards him). Whoever the choice, it’s alternatively important that they have the approval of both Dick, who originated the mantle, and Jason, who left it vacant.

But that’s enough about Jason. You want to know who I really want to talk about in this AU? You guessed it! Helena Bertinelli and Cassandra Cain.

It’s time for No Man’s Land baby~ (absolutely no one is surprised.)

Bruce leaves on an international guilt trip and brings his son with him, much to Jason’s annoyance. It’s over three months before he’s able to convince Bruce to return, and even then it’s only on the condition that Jason enrolls in a boarding school where it’s safe. (Jason is so looking forward to turning 18 when he can finally prove to Bruce that he can take care of himself.)

Meanwhile, Huntress is the sole vigilante presence in No Man's Land. It isn’t long before she recognizes the limits of her own mantle and takes on the mantle of the Bat. In this universe, she is called Batwoman.

It is as Batwoman that she runs into Cassandra, who has been living on the streets of Gotham.

No wait, better idea. Headcanon time: In between acting as two separate vigilantes, Helena also somehow finds the time to run a makeshift classroom for some of the kids stranded in No Man's Land. She recruits them to do odd jobs and in exchange,, she shares some of the food she has stashed wavy and tries to make sure they have at least some education. 

Cassandra is curious and comes first for the food and then for the stories and the reading/writing lessons she doesn’t understand. When she sees Batwoman for the first time and makes the connection, she becomes even more intrigued.

When Batman enters and starts working with Helena, Cassandra saves them both in a handmade costume and ends up as the new Batgirl.

Helena remains as Batwoman after the end of No Man’s Land in this AU. She misses being the Huntress, at the end, but she has Cass to look after now. They grew close in the chaos of No Man’s Land and now the girl’s moved in with her. Helena needs to be better for Cass. She can’t go back to killing because, on one level, Cass wouldn’t let her. On another, she doesn’t want to betray her trust. So she holds the line. She stops her more self-destructive tendencies and tries to do the best for Cass despite the fact that she doesn’t understand her on a fundamental level.

This all leads to her being a more integrated part of the batfam. She's featured in more Bat comics and plays a major supporting role in Batgirl.

Post-No Man’s Land, Jason turns 18, moves off to college, and starts his own Birds of Prey type team. Bruce stalks him, Jason yells at him for it, etc etc.

And now, we’ve arrived at the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Red Hood!Barbara Gordon!

Barbara Gordon’s Under the Red Hood arc is a narrative commentary on fridging and is ideally written by a female author. In this universe, Barbara Gordon was a character who was killed off and vanishes from the narrative. She was a thing pre-crisis but never really a presence post. She is a tombstone next to Sarah Essen. A name mentioned when arguing about the Joker, quickly forgotten to focus on his paralyzing of Jason.

She comes back loud and angry, insisting on being remembered. Look at me, she shouts. Look at my pain. My story should be about me. She sets up a series of circumstances and clues all point to her. To the terrible things that happened to her. Bruce and Gordon have made her death about them, she’s taking it back. Reclaiming it for herself.

She also torments and antagonizes Helena and Cass. They replaced her, they took her place. They don't even know what they've done. They are the first to see her face and they don’t even recognize her. They don’t know the legacy they have claimed. Barbara Gordon rages.

And then, of course, future writers ruin that shining star of an arc by making her ~evil~ and ~crazy~. It’s probably all because coming back from the dead made her infertile and she can’t ever be a mother. Women, am I right? (eyeroll)

Anyway, I want a Red Hood!Barbara Gordon arc now.