#older man for her to take inspiration from as catwoman. but i liked how he was used to show her emotional faults

[t4tails]

the fearsome catwoman:

[glow-worms-are-believers]

Catwoman's new sidekick (dc x dp)

This is very loosely inspired by this prompt. Enjoy the blurb:)

Danny didn’t really like guns. Not the ecto-weapons his parents made, but the actual bullet-filled guns. He knew how to use them, as that was what his parents had based themselves off of to create their own ectoplasm-powered version of it, but he didn’t like them. So when he’d found one not only loaded, but with the safety off in his apartment’s garbage bin, he’d plan to take it and go throw it in the river to make sure nobody would get to use it. Danny wasn’t exactly shocked to see it, this was Gotham after all, but it was a bit of a nasty surprise to say the least. It wasn’t like it could really hurt him anymore, it seemed halfas had a sort of built-in instinct for going intangible (which had explained why the Nasty-Burger-explosion-that-never-happened hadn’t affected him despite being taken completely by surprise).

Not to mention he was already in a bad mood at the news that Vlad was in the city right now for some rich guy nonsense, which Danny was 100% sure meant the fruitloop was going to come by to bother him at some point in the next few days.

“Hello, Daniel,” came Vlad’s voice from behind him as if summoned.

“Get away from me, you creep,” Danny answered, not turning around. Instead, he started walking in the opposite direction.

“Is that anyway to talk to your unckie Vlad?” The man said with his smarmy tone. “And I came by such a long way to come see you.”

“You saw me, now you can leave.” Danny didn’t bother turning his head as Vlad caught up so they were walking side by side.

The billionaire tsked as he looked around. “It’s such a shame you live in such a poor neighbourhood. You know the offer to pay for your tuition is still open.”

“Not in a million years,” Danny answered dryly.

“You’re just as stubborn as my dear Madeleine used to be,” Vlad sighed and Danny felt the disgust twist his features into a grimace.

“Still being a creepy disgusting old loner, Vlad?” Danny snarked. “How many cats are you on, number 5?”

There was flash of anger in the older man’s eye before he smirked. “And how is dear Danielle these days, it’s been so long since she came by. I think she’ll be due for another meltdown soon.”

On impulse, Danny raised the gun, knowing full well the man would go intangible faster than any bullet and pointed it at Vlad. “Don’t you dare touch her.”

“Oh please, Daniel,” Vlad scoffed. “What are you going to do, shoot me?”

“Maybe,” Danny retorted.

“It wouldn’t change anything,” Vlad dismissed.

“Might make me feel better,” Danny said even as he lowered the gun a bit, knowing it wouldn’t do anything.

Vlad knew this just as well, and he sneered before turning his back to Danny and walking away with a parting shot. “I always get what I want, Daniel. Whether it’s through you or her.”

The gun that Danny had lowered slightly now came back up. He was so tempted to empty the stupid thing at Vlad, no matter if it would all pass through him. Before he could do anything though, a voice from above sounded.

“He’s not worth it, kid.”

Danny looked up to find the masked face of Catwoman peering down on him.

“He deserves worse than this,” Danny said, mind still on the temptation of shooting at Vlad’s intangible back. This was a deserted part of the city, it wasn’t like it would hurt anyone else.

“I promise there are better ways to make him pay,” Catwoman answered.

Danny scoffed bitterly. “Vlad’s so rich, he can pay off anyone and cover up any scandal I could think of.” And if money didn’t work, there was always straight-up overshadowing innocent bystanders.

The masked woman hesitated for a while before she called down determinately. “Look, get rid of the gun, and I promise I’ll help you make him pay.”

“Really?” Danny wasn’t too sure what that entailed but anything that would hinder Vlad was a go for him. “You promise?”

“I do,” she stated with conviction. “But you have to lose the gun.”

“Yeah, ok,” Danny said. He was going to do it anyways, but if she wanted it gone even faster, Danny wasn’t going to argue.

Selina watched as her new sidekick dropped off the gun into the river. It fell in with a splash that had something in her curling comfortably. Maybe Bruce was really rubbing off on her if she was picking up strays

But, Selina had a good feeling about this. Talking a kid out of murder had been how Batman had gotten his first Robin, after all.

[levitatingbiscuits]

so i watched the first 2 episodes of my adventures with superman, and i thought it was really cute!! i even like most of the changes they've made to the superman origin story.

i love that the scene of clark discovering his powers was so mundane, for lack of a better term. i love that he's trying so hard to get a kite for himself, but what awakens them is his desire to save another person. i even like that he gets scared of the spaceship and of jor-el, and is content to let it remain a mystery until lois's passion about learning more about him inspires him to do so himself. i absolutely adore that lois is just as interested in clark kent as she is in superman from the get-go. i really love her redesign, too—who says catwoman is the only one who can rock a pixie? (though i do miss her skirts and blazers, i will admit)

however, i am disappointed that this version of lois is an intern that no one but clark and jimmy take seriously. she was iconic because she was created in the 30s as a working woman, and one of the best in her field! in fact, she's better at her job than the leading man. she was inspired by the real-life journalist nellie bly, as well as jerry siegel's own wife, and from the very beginning was superman's fearless intellectual equal. she might have been a damsel in distress a lot, but she deliberately put herself in those situations in order to uncover the truth, and always got the front page because of it. her daring nature is exactly what makes her so good at her job, even if superman has to save her sometimes. he has to save everyone on earth, he's superman, that's what he does.

i get what they're doing with making clark struggle in fights and her helping from the sidelines, but he's superman. his fights have never been about whether he wins, but about whether he can save everyone from the collateral damage. superman's first priority has always been saving people. we know he can beat the villain in a strength vs strength boxing match, so it was really weird to see him get a black eye from a robot, of all things. however, i do like that they went out of their way to establish that he doesn't fight to win, he fights to help, and that he wants to help the villains, too.

but it kind of bites to see lois get her scoop stolen and to have her boss not take her seriously and to see her have to lie to the other interns just to get their help. she's lois goddamn lane! they should be chomping at the bit to work with her!! she should be perry white's most trusted reporter like she was from her very first appearance, not someone for him to scold and talk down to and steal stories from. and it's kind of weird that the first iteration of lois to be so disrespected is also the first time she's portrayed as a woman of color. maybe they'll make it so that the barriers she's suddenly facing are due to racism, but so far it's been implied to be her own fault, which i did not like at all.

i also think it's weird that they've aged her down. lois lane has always been a bit older and more established in her career than superman. there's a tradition in hollywood that her actress is always older than the actor playing superman, which is still a rarity today, much less the past several decades. it's almost unheard of for the leading lady to be older unless the movie is specifically about an older woman seducing a younger man. so i think it's important for her to be older and better at her job, and for those to be some of the reasons why clark is attracted to her. and i'm not saying she should be hitting on her intern, i'm saying that neither of them had to be interns. it seems like the only reason they've made them interns is because they wanted to age lois down and make her less of an established career woman, when established career woman is literally one of her most integral character traits!!

SHE IS ALWAYS THE ONE WHO BREAKS THE STORY OF SUPERMAN WHY THE FUCK DID THEY STEAL HER SCOOP HOW COULD THEY DISRESPECT MY GIRL LIKE THAT I'M SO MAD

[desiraypark]

Clyde x Sherri Master Post

Clyde x Sherri is an ongoing non-linear series about (now) married couple, Clyde and Sherri (Simmons) Logan. Clyde and Sherri are currently living it up in “real-time”, but entries could be set in the past or future. Sometimes major events are sped up (ex: in real-time, they moved to Norfolk, VA in September 2020, but I’ve been writing them in their new city since July 2020).  This post (which is long, I must add) contains a breakdown of the series entries and some story development details (the Capricorn jumps out, y’all).  Full Series in Posting Order (Entry Breakdown below) LONG POST WARNING

ENTRY INDEX ( *- means they’re being sexy and/or they’re gonna bang) Before They Met July 1992 (Young Clyde x Sherri cross paths) Dating Era The First Date “Familiar” (How They Met) Untitled Prompt Request (Clyde asking Sherri to quit one of her jobs) “Was it for a good reason?” (Sherri learns about the robbery)  Shattered (continuation of the previous) Locked Away (cont. of the prev.) No More Secrets (cont. of the prev.) - Sherri x Jimmy Like Magnets (cont. of the prev.) Meet the Parents (Clyde meets Terry & Ramona Simmons) “Where’s Sherri?” (Request/Clyde x Sherri at a family cookout) Honeybunch (Why Sherri calls Clyde “Honeybunch”) Movin’ In (Prompt request)

Married (Before the child/children) Dearly Beloved (Part of their Wedding) Shut Up, Clyde* (Their Honeymoon) Summer Madness (Summer fluff) Bare Feet (Prompt Request - Clyde and Sherri enjoy a kiddie pool) Lil’ House Guest (Critter alert) Have Clyde’s Cake and Eat It, Too (Sherri can’t resist sweets) Sherri Logan, P.I.* (A lil’ roleplay)  Bad* (A hint of dominatin’ Clyde) Are We Ready? (Discussing children) “Where is my tongue?!” (Sherri gets her wisdom teeth pulled) A Birthday First* (Sherri puts on a show) Lunch Time* (Clyde his hungry) “Love Won’t Let Me Wait”* (Baby Fever in a thunderstorm) Yoink! (Sherri is not to be trifled with) Headed West (Clyde and Sherri move) Every Room* (You see what it says) Something in Common (Clyde and Sherri meet their neighbors) A Mean Old Fashioned (Clyde gets a new job) “Her Name is Sherri.” (Clyde finds the perfect job for Sherri) A Long Night* (If you give a Clyde a remote...) Negative to a Positive (Sherri suspects pregnancy) Deserving (Sherri helps Clyde through anxiety) Bad Mood* (Clyde fixes that lil’ attitude) Babies with Dimples (Clyde and Sherri have too much to drink) Sherri and the Giant Peach (Sherri tries on business clothing) Apple Pie (Sherri freestyles a popular dessert) Chef Sadie (Sadie goes on a cooking competition reality show) Too Much* (Clyde lets out some frustration) No Solids / No Sweets (Sherri’s sick and refuses to do the right thing) Cherries & Honey (Sherri gets a tattoo) The Near Future The Big People (From Clyde and Sherri’s child’s POV) Shush. (Pregnant Sherri wants Clyde to be comfortable) Peanut Butter Jelly Time! (Pregnant Sherri is hungry and horny) The Family Man (Clyde’s dad returns) Catwoman (The Logans go trick-or-treating) The Distant Future Ruby (Clyde and Sherri’s 40th Anniversary) The Weight (Part I - Part II) (Sherri deals with impostor’s syndrome) With Others No More Secrets (Sherri x Jimmy) The Little Things (Clyde x James Cooke) Extra Stuff The World of Clyde x Sherri - “behind-the-scenes” type stuff (includes their birth charts, text conversations, descriptions of their homes, etc.) Sim Clyde x Sherri (I made them in The Sims 4) _______________________ MAJOR TIMELINE The events of Logan Lucky are pushed back to 2015 solely because I wanted Clyde and Sherri to have known each other for a long-time (again, relative to “real-time”).  2015 Early May - Clyde got locked up Late August - Clyde got out December - Clyde moved into his own two-bedroom home // Clyde and Sherri “formally” met.  2017 January - Clyde and Sherri started dating Early April - Clyde and Sherri broke up Early May - Clyde and Sherri got back together Late May - Sherri formally met Jimmy and Mellie  June - Clyde met Sherri’s separated parents (Terry and Ramona Simmons) 2018 March - Clyde and Sherri got engaged September - Clyde and Sherri got married “2020″ September - Clyde and Sherri moved to Norfolk, VA. ______________________ BACKGROUND STORIES Some Clyde Logan headcanons; Sherri Logan development Content/Trigger Warnings: Depression; impostor syndrome; self-doubt; death; parent death; war mention; war injury mention; abandonment (by a parent); cancer mention. Sherri (Simmons) Logan was born on January 25, 1988, in Charleston, West Virginia. Her family moved to Boone when she was a toddler. She has an older sister named Robyn and a little brother named Terry Jr (aka TJ). Sherri graduated high school with a 4.0 GPA and attended North Carolina Central University where she studied Early Childhood Education for two years. Her life’s dream was to become an elementary school librarian. While in college, Sherri’s parents separated. As a result, she became depressed, and eventually so overwhelmed with school work that she dropped out.  Despite her inner desire, Sherri avoided any work in the education field and took on jobs in retail and customer service. When she and Clyde started dating, she worked two jobs--cashier at a dollar store and cashier at a local supermarket. She was also living with her best friend, Tasha. Sherri still feels the “sting” of (self-imposed) embarrassment that has come with being “the one who was supposed to “make it” but didn’t”, but occasionally considers returning to school. Sherri’s sister, Robyn, moved back to Charleston when she married Devon. They have a son, Devon Jr (aka DJ), and a baby girl named Princess. Her brother, TJ, lives in Atlanta, GA. Sherry currently works as the morning/afternoon receptionist at Busy Bees Daycare. Entries to Reference: “July 1992″, “Her name is Sherri.”, “Untitled Prompt Request”, “Familiar”. Clyde Logan was born on November 25, 1983, in Boone, West Virginia to Donna Logan and Timothy Green. He has an older brother named James (aka Jimmy) and a little sister named Melody (aka Mellie). When Clyde was about eight years old, Timothy (never having married Donna), abandoned his family--only sending the occasional postcard to his parents and for the first couple of years, birthday cards to his kids (through his parents). When Donna died of cancer in 1996, the Logan children moved in with their maternal grandparents, Aaron and Sylvia. 

Around this time, Clyde noticeably became more introverted, but often got in trouble for little mischievous acts (ex: setting off the school fire alarm to get out of a test; the occasional schoolyard fight). He joined the Army after high school and just as he was returning home after a second tour in Iraq, Clyde lost the lower part of his left arm in a roadside accident. Inspired by his newfound love for cooking shows, Clyde began taking bartending classes, and late in 2004, started working at Duck Tape. He worked there for sixteen years. 

Aaron and Sylvia Logan have since passed away (Aaron in 1999, Sylvia in 2008), as has Clyde’s paternal grandmother, Betty (d. 2013). His brother Jimmy currently lives in Greenbrier County, WV has a daughter named Sadie and a fiancée named (ironically), Sylvia. Mellie is recently married to Joe Bang. Clyde currently works as day bartender at a posh restaurant called Strafford’s Kitchen.  Entries to Reference: “July 1992″, “Familiar”, “A Mean Old Fashioned”, “Headed West”.  _____________________ I even have a work schedule for these two but I’m gonna to sit down somewhere and finish this. Bye. Lol.

[teentitanimals]

im working on a BIG Batfamily project, and WOW have i realized how much harder this is gonna be than i first thought it was... for now, have an excerpt- or, rather, Selina Kyle’s information card of the project :) im pretty proud of this! information and story subject to change

Selina Kyle-Wayne

birth name: Selina Calabrese

Main Alias: Catwoman

Other Aliases: Catbird (in Gothtopia), The Cat, The Cat Burglar, Irena Dubrovna

Current Age: ~46 (When first CW; 21. When had HK; 36. Retires CW; ~55. At death; ~70.)

Birthdate: March 14th (Alternatively; March 31st)

Hair Color: Black

Hair Length: Short

Eye Color: Green

Race/Ethnic/Skin Color: Half-Cuban; Possibly Italian, Scottish, and/or Latina descendant (White)

Sexuality: Bisexual

Gender: Female (She/her)

Height: ~5’11” (Tall)

Weight: ~146lbs (Sorta Heavy)

Build: Slender, Curvy

Biological Parents: Maria Kyle, Rex Calabrese

Step-Father: Brian Kyle

Alleged Father: Carmine Falcone

Biological Sister: Magdalene “Maggie” Kyle-Burton

Biological Half-Brother: Aiden Mason

Brother-in-Law: Simon Burton

Biological Cousins: Nick Calabrese, Antonia Calabrese

Alleged Siblings: Sofia Falcone, Alberto Falcone, Mario Falcone

Surrogative Sister: Holly Robinson

Ex-Lovers: Sam Bradley Jr., Eiko Hasigawa, Moreland McShane

Husband: Bruce Wayne

Parents-in-Law: Thomas Wayne, Martha Wayne

Siblings-in-Law: Thomas Wayne Jr. (On Earth-3), Rochelle Wayne (in Elseworlds: Reign of Terror)

Surrogative Father-in-Law: Alfred Pennyworth

Surrogative Sister-in-Law: Julia Pennyworth

Cousins-in-Law: Kate Kane, Beth Kane, Bette Kane

Surrogate Daughter: Arizona

Biological Children: Helena Kyle, Helena Wayne (from Earth-2)*, “Aion” Wayne (In Batman in Bethlehem)

*(HC; Helena is legally her adopted daughter on Earth-1.)

Step-Children: Damian Wayne, Athanasia al Ghul, The Heretic (clone of DW), Tallant Wayne (clone of DW), Alina Wayne (maybe), Bruce Wayne Jr. (On Earth-3839), Dick Grayson, Lance Bruner, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Cass Cain, Duke Thomas (maybe), Terry McGinnis, Matt McGinnis

Daughters-in-Law: Koriand’r, Dana Tan

Step-Grandchildren: Mar'i Grayson, Jake Grayson, John Grayson II (On Earth-2), Sasha Todd, Clark Wayne (On Earth-3839)

Step-Great-Granddaughters: Lois Wayne (On Earth-3839), Lara Wayne (On Earth-3839)

Catwoman Run: ~34 years

Succeeded By: Eiko Hasigawa, Holly Robinson, (First Name N/A) Black

Wikipedia. Batman Wiki. DC Database. DCAMU. Animated Series. Comic Vine.

(tw; self-harm, suicide, child abuse, illegal prostitution, drug addiction, sexual abuse, death)

Selina Calabrese was born to Rex Calabrese and Maria Calabrese with a sister two years older than her named Magdalene Calabrese. When Selina was very young, her mother escaped from Rex, also known as The Lion, leader of the Calabrese Crime Family, and became the husband to Brian Kyle, legally changing all their names to Maria Kyle, Maggie Kyle, and Selina Kyle. Maria had a son with him, Aiden Kyle. Their relationship was not healthy, with Maria being very suicidal and Brian being drunk and abusive. He would often yell at and harm Maria and her kids, and Maria, although she loved her kids, was distant, more often spending time with her cats. One day, Selina came home from school to find her mother dead in the tub, having cut her wrists until she bled out. A year later, Brian died from alcohol poisoning, and Selina called the police, packed her bags and ran away. Maggie and Aiden were taken to the orphanage, and Aiden, being fairly young, was almost immediately adopted by a family, where his name was changed to Aiden Mason. His contact with his half-sisters was cut off, although he would eventually seek them out as an older teen and young adult. Maggie was adopted after a few months, and was raised very religiously. She kept in contact with Selina best she could.

On the streets, Selina would steal food, clothing and other material from grocery stores. She was eventually caught and put in the orphanage. She acted out a lot, causing her to be sent to Juvenile Hall. When she turned age 13, she was sent back to the orphanage. There, she realized the place was embezzling money. To make sure she never told anyone, they put her in a bag and dropped her in a river. Selina managed to escape, and then stole documentary proof of their embezzlement to give to the police, some money for herself, and her own files in hopes of reuniting with her brother or sister. Instead, she found out that Brian was not her birth father, and that her father was an unknown mobster man. Selina continued living on the streets, stealing food and jewelry to meet her own, as the money she stole would not last forever. She would be taken in by an old thief gang leader named Mama Fortuna, who treated the kids under her care like slaves. Eventually, Selina would run away with a friend from the gang named Sylvia. They could not survive on their own and always had a shortage of money, and Sylvia took up prostitution to support them both, and grew to hate Selina for it. They parted ways.

When Selina was 17, she began illegally working as a prostitute under an abusive pimp named Stan. She stumbled upon a 13-year-old Holly Robinson who was being sexually abused by a cop. Selina beat the cop up, inspiring Holly who said that was the first time anybody had shown her she could fight back. The two became roommates. To pay for living expenses and food, Selina continued stealing, and Holly eventually became an illegal prostitute too when she was 16, despite Selina being against it. Her underage status resulted in Stan getting into a fight with a drifter, who, unbeknownst to them, was Bruce Wayne in disguise. A few weeks later, Holly would wake Selina up to show her Batman, still new and fresh, beating up corrupt police officer and former Commissioner Branden. Selina, inspired by how someone can don a costume and have everyone either be happy or terrified to see him that she can do the same too, would confront and fight Stan about his abuse, officially having her and Holly quit prostitution. She spent money to buy an expensive costume- her first Catwoman costume. She robbed a local store, and one of the security guards called her “Catwoman”, which she liked and chose to be her name. Stan, wanting revenge on Selina and Holly for quitting, kidnaps Maggie. After a few days, Selina locates him, saves her sister, and beats him to death in a rage as Catwoman. Selina informs Maggie of her new persona, who disagrees heavily, especially seeing as she killed a man, but promises to keep quiet.

The police investigate Selina and Holly, and one police officer sexually harasses Holly. Enraged, Selina went out as Catwoman with intent to kill him, but Batman intervened and made her see how her anger blinded her. Terrified she was a danger to Holly, she sent Holly to live in a convent with Maggie, who was a nun (although she would later give up her nunage to marry her husband, Simon Burton). Catwoman would begin her crime life properly, crossing paths with the likes of the Joker, the Riddler, Poison Ivy, and others, and flirting with Batman, of course. While Selina continued on to be a thief as Catwoman for the next few years, Holly felt she did not fit in the convent, and eventually found herself back on the streets. She got addicted to drugs and went back into prostitution.

While Holly was away, Selina temporarily got a new roommate, a young blonde girl nicknamed Arizona who reminded Selina a lot of Holly. She took her under her wing, and Arizona acted like her sidekick for a while, before she eventually found her own feeting and started a life on her own. She still kept close contact with Selina, though.

After five years, a gang leader named Bone killed a close friend of Selina’s named Lola MacIntire, who knew Selina was Catwoman and let her crash at her place after her apartment was destroyed. Bone wanted revenge after Catwoman had stolen from him. This devastated Selina, who viewed it as completely her fault. At Lola’s funeral, Selina encountered her old friend, Gwen Altamont, and the two began working together. Catwoman stole cars for Gwen, and encountered a metahuman thief named Spark while on the job. Catwoman convinces Gwen to let her work with Spark, and the two plan to rob Penguin of the fifth dagger they need to complete a set of valuable knives. Catwoman stakes out at the restaurant Penguin likes to eat at a day before he would be there, which Spark questions why they are doing so a day before. Catwoman notices a young hooker getting tranquilized and dragged into a van. Catwoman leaps into action, Spark soon following. They save the girl, and, after questioning local prostitutes, find out there have been multiple kidnappings and murders like this. Catwoman investigates and plans to defeat the kidnappers. After failing to stop a kidnapper in the act, Catwoman contacts Detective Carlos Alvarez, a detective who has been chasing her tail but that she knows is a genuinely good cop, for help. They track the kidnapper, Matilda Mathis aka Dollhouse, the daughter of Dollmaker, to a mansion. Catwoman fights Dollhouse, but Batman interrupts their fight, allowing both to escape. Catwoman questions her ability to be a vigilante, knowing she’s a better thief.

After those series of murders to other prostitutes, Holly quits being a prostitute and heads to her and Selina’s old apartment. She is pleasantly surprised to find Selina lived there after the destruction of her other apartment, and the two reunited. Holly began working as a spy of sorts for Catwoman, gathering information of what was happening on the streets of East End. Although she eventually stopped taking drugs after living with Selina for a few months, she felt concerned that she was still looking at the world through the eyes of a junkie to gather intel. During this time period, the Scarecrow releases a gas that makes everyone believe they are in a utopia- Gothtopia. There, Selina believed she was Catbird, partner to Batman. Where Batman could see glimpses of reality, Catbird just thought him delusional. While people who could see through the illusion questioned their sanity and committed suicide, Catbird began investigating a criminal named Steeljacket, who was also convinced their reality was an illusion. Steeljacket explained that the suit he was wearing kept him alive and he needed her thievery skills to get him the money to repair it. Catbird helped him, and the familiar adrenaline rush of a robbery made her remember her real identity of Catwoman. After Batman freed the city from Scarecrow’s toxin, Catwoman reminded him of how they shared both a partnership and a true romantic relationship in Gothtopia. Batman denied the extent of his romantic feelings, even though the toxin showed them both what they wanted to see.

A few years later, Black Mask, who held a vendetta against Catwoman, kidnapped her sister Maggie and Simon, killed Simon, and then forced Maggie to eat her husband’s eyes, driving her insane. Black Mask also kidnapped and beat Holly with the help of an old childhood friend of Catwoman, Sylvia. Catwoman kills Black Mask, Holly kills Sylvia, and they save Maggie, who is put in a psychiatric institute. Holly isolated herself and nearly fell back onto old habits. Selina decided Holly needed time to heal outside of Gotham City and needed proper training, so she sent Holly to a rural safehouse where she trained in hand-to-hand combat with Ted Grant. Selina and Slam Bradley, a detective friend of Selina’s, located Holly’s long lost brother Davey, and the two reunited.

Eventually, Black Mask was revived by a Black Lantern, and immediately sought out Maggie, threatening to kill her and anyone else Catwoman cared about. Catwoman, with the help of Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, defeated Black Mask again. Maggie escaped, and no longer wanted anything to do with Selina, blaming her for her insane condition and Simon’s death, and believing Selina was possessed by a cat demon. Maggie sought out Sister Agatha to exorcise her sister, but when Maggie saw Agatha’s cat, she snapped and killed Agatha’s cat and then Agatha because she believed Agatha was in league with Selina’s cat demon. Maggie then searched through Agatha’s relics and tools, stumbling upon a supernatural substance in a container that warped Maggie’s sense of reality further. To Maggie, an angel was released and claimed it would help her destroy Selina’s cat demon. Maggie finds Selina and Harley Quinn and attacks them with heightened abilities. Harley refers to Maggie as “Sister Zero”, and then becomes possessed by the “angel”’s influence. Catwoman manages to get through to Harley, confusing her enough to escape Maggie’s control. Selina forces Maggie to escape, who starts to formulate a new plan to save her sister’s soul. The angel told her to team up with Azrael and Crusader during Gotham’s Judgement Day, which she does. Maggie believes she is her sister’s test of faith, which means either Selina will get cleansed of her cat demon, or Maggie will die. But in the end, when Maggie has a chance to end Selina’s life, she can’t bring herself to do it. Maggie ends up back in a psychiatric institute and starts to slowly heal, although sometimes Sister Zero breaks out.

Holly begins a relationship with a girl named Karon, who she moves into the apartment of. She also becomes the supervisor of a group of street kids known as the Alleytown Gang, training them to act like the spies and informants of Catwoman’s network. Unbeknownst to Holly, Selina had grown tired of seeing her role as Catwoman ruin her life over and over. Selina burned her suit, but would be forced to don it again after a woman named Roulette contacted her about a competition between thieves that threatened the lives of children. Catwoman got a new suit and raced to save the lives of the children. After competing in several rounds, she realized that there never were any real children in danger. Roulette had actually been hired by a man named Hunt Stone who wanted any evidence that connected his ancestors to a famous murder stolen and erased. Selina began sabotaging every aspect of her strictly regimented and planned out days, until Roulette was forced to declare her the winner of the Race of Thieves to make her stop. During this time where Selina went missing, Holly acted as Catwoman to keep other criminals at bay.

With Catwoman I back in action, Oracle asks Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn to keep an eye on Vicki Vale, who has evidence on the members of the Batfamily that need to be destroyed. Selina notices an artifact in Vicki’s possession that she had once stolen. It reminds her of the days when Batman used to chase her, and she reminisces on them. Her flashback is interrupted as Harley breaks into the room they were monitoring, wanting to get her hyenas back because they had stolen them from her. Vicki bolts out of the room, and they lose her trail, but Selina managed to get her phone number. She planted a fake call to lead Vicki out of her apartment, allowing Selina to break in and take pictures of her Batwall, which Batman and Oracle needed. Selina reminisces about her crime life.

When a mysterious malefactor came to Gotham with a yearlong plan to ruin Batman’s life, Catwoman began investigating into the turf war between the Penguin and newly returned mobster Carmine Falcone. She was captured by Falcone for causing him grief years ago and he nearly killed her, but Professor Pyg attacked Falcone, having a vendetta against him. Catwoman plans to kill Falcone, who she suspects might be her biological father, but before she can, Batman intervenes. She leaves Falcone and his mob to Batman, but sometime later while trying and failing to stop a deal to sell a baby snow leopard for its fur, a young girl locates Selina. She tells Selina that her father wanted her to attend a meeting in Blackgate Penitentiary. Her real father was Rex Calabrese, the crime boss from whom Falcone had taken power. Selina declined the request at first, but a street kid named Jade came to find her next, informing her the girl before her was killed by gang violence. Selina asked Rex for his guidance in becoming a mob boss herself to keep the mobsters in check from killing any other kids. The leadership of the Calabrese Family and the ownership of the Egyptian Nightclub were passed onto her as the legal heir. Catwoman, wanting to make sure Batman knew she was still on the side of good despite becoming the head of a crime family, told Batman everything she knew about the group of Arkham escapees still on the loose. After she got invited to a secret weapons sale that were actually weapons stolen from Batman’s own supply, Catwoman began to research high bounties in Gotham, and was tipped onto Stephanie Brown. Catwoman kidnapped her without realizing she was the current Batgirl. She was rescued by Batman and the situation was resolved. Soon Batman got captured by Lincoln March, and rioting broke out across the city. Selina forced her people to help prevent the riots while also secretly making strategic thefts to further her causes. During this time, Selina gave up her Catwoman mantle to Eiko Hasigawa, a heir to the rival Hasigawa crime family, and a love interest of Selina’s.

Eiko’s time as Catwoman was short-lived, though, as Eiko and Selina merged the Hasigawa and Calabrese families, leaving Eiko as their leader while Selina went back to her normal life… Sort of. She realized she was pregnant from a one-night stand with Sam Bradley Jr., and Holly Robinson took on the mantle of Catwoman at Selina’s request. Selina made up a fake identity, Irena Dubrovna, to peacefully give birth to her daughter, legally known as Helena Dubrovna. Sam Jr. had died by the time Selina realized she was pregnant, but his father, Slam Bradley, wanted to provide for his new granddaughter. Selina could not resist the thrill of Catwoman, and donned the suit alongside Holly a few times. Unfortunately, Film Freak and Angle Man had deduced where Selina lived after catching the two Catwomen on film, and kidnapped Helena. Selina easily rescued her daughter, and then had Zatanna Zatarra mindwipe the two villains of Selina’s identities. With Batman’s help, she faked “Irena” and Helena’s deaths, putting Helena up for adoption. She asked Zatanna to wipe her mind of knowledge about Helena so she wouldn’t put her in danger again, but Zatanna refused.

After returning to her solo role as Catwoman for nearly a year, Selina allowed herself to be arrested and sent to death row at Arkham Asylum for the murders of over two hundred terrorists. It was her friend, Holly, who had really committed the crime, but she trusted Batman would prove her innocence, therefore saving her and Holly’s lives. Nearly a year later, Helena Wayne, biological daughter of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle, from Earth Never-Two passes into Earth Never-One and gets trapped. Helena meets this world’s Selina Kyle. The two become close, with Helena still mourning the death of her mother in her universe and Selina missing her daughter. Selina was worried that being too close to her alternate universe daughter might lead her to the same fate as her Helena Kyle, but this Helena was an experienced adult who had lived through an Apokoliptian war. She was a capable vigilante who could hold her own perhaps even better than Selina herself, and Selina felt her concerns fade away. After another year passes, Selina asks if she can adopt Helena Wayne, despite Helena being 21-years-old. Helena, surprised, agrees. Almost a year after that, Bruce proposes to Selina and she accepts, becoming his wife.

Selina Kyle is, in general, highly flirtatious, seductive, and willing to use her looks and her charms to get what she wants- in fact she’s even proud of it. She’s also, much like her namesake, graceful, sly and light-footed, known as one of the greatest thieves out there. Despite her past of being an abused victim, she stands with her head high since she first donned the Catwoman suit (it can be quite enconfidating, that anonymity). She was never one to sit back and let herself or others get abused, and she sympathizes heavily with abused children, young women and sex workers especially. While her career as Catwoman started out to support herself and her friends, it eventually became an addictive adrenaline rush she couldn’t give up. Even though she’s ‘reformed’, she still has sticky fingers and loves the thrill of getting away with small robberies, especially when her husband is the Batman. She enjoys getting under his skin. She isn’t too big on black and white morality, instead choosing to do whatever is necessary for the situation. She’s not ‘above’ killing, but she’s no homicidal murderer, and it’s never her first option, although attacking her loved ones is a sure way to push her closer to the edge. Although admittedly in her earlier days, the empowerment of being Catwoman got to her head, and she let rage cloud her judgement, leading to her being more willing to brutally harm and kill. She’s very willing to take risks, enjoying the danger even, and she’s incredibly stubborn and persistent. She never had much of a villainous ego, nor does she have a superhero complex. She walks the line between the both with confidence, never worrying about being in the gray. Sometimes it ticks her off when Bruce and others think she should commit completely to one or the other, when she’s perfectly fine where she is.

Reblogs appreciated! Stay tuned for the finished project, which is this... but for every Batfam member ever

[thepurplebutterflythings]

Kitty Cat & Tweety Bird (Part 4) - Jason Todd

Gif: Dxnninja on Tenor

Word Count: 3.5K

Paring: Jason Todd (Titans) x (f)Reader

Summary: Police Commissioner Jim Gordon meets Y/N and sees the blatantly obvious reason as to why Bruce finds Y/N familiar, although Bruce still doesn’t notice it. Y/N goes and visits her Auntie Harley and Auntie Ivy to ask them what they know about her father. 

Warnings: N/A

A/N: This is a little series I am doing about Jason Todd in Titans. I don’t know Comic!Jason very well so I’m taking all of this from the show, and at the moment he hasn’t been in very often, so please forgive any mischaracterizations.

Tagging: @bella-0104-123 @ninergirl1d @httpfandxms @rosybrock @attackonnat @reclusive-chicken-nugget   @demoiselle-en-detresse00 @young-psychos @thesleepykaijuu @thescottpack @nightlygiggles @rougestorms @sinon36

Kitty Cat & Tweety Bird Part 3 | Masterlist | Kitty Cat & Tweety Bird Part 5

________________________________________________________________

Y/N didn’t know how the conversation started between herself, Bruce and Jason, but they were talking about vigilantes.

“I think people like Batman and Robin are needed,” Y/N said as they chatted on, “My mum grew up in the city before they existed and tells me stories about it, people like Fish Mooney and Jerome Valaska, and it sounds like a chaotic nightmare. With Batman and Robin around… there’s more order in the city.”

“Yes, I remember the city before,” Bruce nodded along as Jason wrapped an arm around Y/N’s shoulder and kissed her temple. They found no need to hide their budding relationship, it didn’t affect her internship and Bruce respected personal boundaries. “It has certainly changed.”

“And they’ve inspired others to make a difference and fight crime,” Y/N added on.

“Lynx is my favourite,” Jason said, “She’s a total badass!”

“Lynx…” Bruce frowned.

“Don’t you like Lynx?” Y/N asked curiously, wanting to know what Bruce, Batman, had against Lynx. Maybe it could help her improve.

“Well, there is great potential there, no doubt,” Bruce nodded, “but I keep a vault at the Gotham city Vaults and heard from a guard of Catwoman, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy breaking in and nearly being captured by Batman and Robin only for Lynx to help the three escape,” Bruce almost tutted, “if it’s true, then I’d say that Lynx is unpredictable, and can you rely on someone unpredictable?”

Y/N pulled away from Jason and walked towards Bruce’s shelves to study what was on there, hoping to change the topic. They didn’t understand. They wouldn’t understand. Her eyes were drawn to a broken object. It was a broken snow globe, white base and no glass, and therefore no water or snow, but the scenery inside was still intact. A snowy hill with trees and a house. Y/N frowned as she looked at it, fingers itching to touch it and trace the little path through the trees leading to the house.

“Where’d you get this?” Y/N asked, turning to look at Bruce, who remained at his desk, eyeing the article of his past. Jason stood by Y/N and looked at the snow globe too, as though he had just noticed it.

“I bought it as a gift for… someone, a girl, when I was a young boy,” Bruce explained as he finally approached the two at his shelves. He took the snow globe and handed it to Y/N, who lifted it up close to study, smiling at the pretty scenery, imagining how it would look with falling snow. Bruce watched her closely; there was something about the glimmer in her eye and the smile on her face when looking at the broken artefact that stuck him – she was so familiar to him somehow, why?

“Didn’t she like it?” Y/N asked, lowering the snow globe.

“I’m not sure,” Bruce said, “we had an argument when I tried giving it to her and she dropped it, then left.”

“I’m sorry,” Y/N said handing the globe back. Bruce took it and gave a small smile.

“She was a very stubborn person,” Bruce almost chuckled.

“You and this girl,” Jason said, “were you… together?”

“Not at the time, never officially,” Bruce explained, “but… we liked each other… and in another life…” there was a sadness to his voice as he thought about the girl.

The conversation was interrupted by a knock on the open office door. The three turned to see an older man standing there in a neat suit, crinkles around his eyes and mouth as he smiled at Bruce, who chuckled and greeted the man with a firm handshake.

“Bruce Wayne, it’s good to see you,” the man said.

“Likewise, Commissioner.”

“Come on, after all we’ve been through, call be Jim,” The Commissioner said as he walked in and saw Jason and Y/N. He held his hand out to them, “Jim Gordon, Police Commissioner.”

“Jason Todd,” Jason said, shaking his hand.

Jim then turned and looked at Y/N, blinking in shock, his mouth open as he stared at her. Jim knew that smile, a permanent playfulness etched onto a face with a mischievousness that was hard to hide, and looking at Y/N’s eyes, Jim saw something else. It was so clear and so obvious to an outsider, but something Bruce couldn’t see himself, the reason as to why Y/N seemed so familiar, and not only that but something else, something hidden, something which Y/N didn’t know herself. It was all there in her eyes. Y/N just smiled and chuckled, taking his hand, clueless to his reaction.

“Y/N,” she said, “I’m the new Wayne Enterprises Intern.”

“Nice to meet you, Y/N,” Jim said, slowly shaking her hand and staring at her face.

“Well, we’re going to lunch now,” Jason said, “see you later, Bruce, and nice meeting you Commissioner Gordon.”

“And nice meeting the pair of you,” Jim said as he watched Y/N leave the room with Jason. When they left Jim turned to Bruce with a stunned expression.

“Does Y/N remind you of anyone?” Bruce asked gesturing after the girl.

“Yes,” Jim said.

“Me too, but I can’t figure out who.”

“Really?” Jim blinked. Was Bruce Wayne so oblivious that he couldn’t recognise that Y/N was the daughter of Selina Kyle? And was Bruce Wayne so oblivious that he couldn’t see that Y/N had his eyes?

Apparently, he was.

________________________________________________________________

“Tell me,” Alfred said to Y/N as she and Jason sat in the kitchen. Bruce was still at the office. “Is it just you and your mother?”

“Yep, just me and my mum.”

“Where’s your father?” Alfred asked curiously. Even Jason turned to look at Y/N then. After all their time together, Y/N had never mentioned her father.

“He died,” Y/N sighed, “before I was born.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Alfred said, placing a hand on Y/N’s shoulder. “How did it happen?”

“There was a shoot-out at one of Penguin’s places, my parents were there and Dad made sure Mum was safe,” Y/N paused, “Mum had just told Dad that she was pregnant.”

“Oh, Y/N,” Alfred sighed, “I am truly sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Y/N shrugged it off. She hated the pity people gave her when they heard her mother’s tragedy. Her father died protecting Selina and her unborn child, that’s what should be remembered, not that Y/N grew up without a father.

“Well, Y/N,” Alfred said, “your mother did an absolutely remarkable job in raising you, you are an incredible young woman and I have no doubt that your father, if he were here, would be incredibly proud of you,” he smiled at Y/N.

“Thank you, Alfred,” Y/N smiled faintly, “that means a lot to me.”

“What was his name?” Alfred asked. Y/N stopped smiling, it fell from her face as she thought. What was her father’s name? Y/N frowned as she thought. Surely her mother must have mentioned it once, at least a nickname, but as Y/N thought she realised that Selina hadn’t. Who was her father?

________________________________________________________________

“AUNTIE HARLEY? AUNTIE IVY?” Y/N called through the lobby of Harley and Ivy’s house. Her voice echoed around the room before she heard the sound of paws hitting the ground. Bud and Lou, Harley’s Hyenas, plodded up to her and nudged her legs for Y/N to fuss them, which she did with a chuckle, scratching Bud behind the ear and Lou under the chin. “Hey babies,” Y/N cooed at the animals.

“Y/N?”

“Auntie Ivy,” Y/N sighed as she walked up to her aunt and hugged her, “where’s Harley?” She asked, looking around her.

“I’ve learnt not to ask,” Ivy chuckled while speaking into Y/N’s ear and wrapping an arm around her, “it only leads to me worrying. Now,” Ivy said, “what brings my lovely niece round?”

“I, erm, I wanted to talk,” Y/N said as Ivy sat her down and grabbed a bowl of strawberries which were already out and sat it between them.

“About anything in particular?” Ivy asked as she sat down and looked at Y/N.

“What’d you know of my father?” Y/N asked. Ivy blinked and straightened up at the question.

“Hasn’t your mother told you all she knows?”

“No, mum doesn’t like talking about dad,” Y/N confessed, “she always gets upset about it.”

“What’s brought this on? Wanting to know about your father?”

“I don’t know,” Y/N shrugged, “I guess I feel like there’s a part of me missing cause I don’t know my past, my whole past. I know mum, but I don’t know dad. And, honestly, something seems off about Mum’s story about Dad

“Well, honestly, sprout,” Ivy sighed “Harley and I know nothing about your father, and honestly, we couldn’t even tell you if what your mother says is the truth.” Ivy waved a hand, “Penguin has gained many enemies over the years and an attack seems likely, and many died in crossfires in Gotham, but I don’t know why on earth Selina would step into Penguin’s place, especially when pregnant and with the man she loves. But I and Harley have always accepted it as the truth. Why would we question it?” Ivy explained, “Although now you mention it there is a lot to question about Selina’s story. Remember sprout, your mother is in a dangerous lifestyle and she often keeps things private for protection, not of herself but of you. You’re her daughter, she would do anything for you.”

“I know,” Y/N nodded, “I just want to know who he was, where I came from… if there’s any family on his side. I feel like I’m missing part of myself.”

“I get that, sprout,” Ivy stroked Y/N’s hair, “I do. If I knew anything I’d tell you,” Ivy promised, “but I don’t, and neither does Harley. This is Selina Kyle we’re speaking of, even her secrets have secrets.”

“But, Auntie Ivy,” Y/N hesitated, “if mum is lying and my father didn’t die in a crossfire at Penguin’s, then what did happen?”

“I don’t know…” Ivy whispered, “your mother keeps many secrets, and your father seems to be her best-kept one, but I doubt your mother would cut your father from your life, she knows what it’s like growing up without parents. I think she must be telling the truth, and if not, then… well… I hate to say it, sprout, and then perhaps your father died another way, something less heroic than protecting the mother of his unborn child. I hope you don’t get upset by that…”

“No, no,” Y/N shook her head, “I get it… There are no heroes in Gotham.”

“Not in the big sense,” Ivy said, “but there are small heroes every now and then, and perhaps your father was genuinely one of those. He did the brave thing and sacrificed himself so your mother could have you and give you the best life possible, and maybe that’s why it hurts your mother so to talk about him.”

“Thank you, Auntie Ivy.”

“Now come on,” Ivy stood up and pulled Y/N to her feet, “I’m going to need help watering the plants and feeding Bud and Lou, and I think you are the perfect little helper!” Ivy tapped the end of Y/N’s nose with her finger, “come along, sprout.”

“Hun, where are you?” Harley cooed as she walked around the house, Bud and Lou trailing after her, coming to see Ivy and Y/N. “Aww, Y/N,” Harley squealed, running and hugging her niece closely, “it’s so good to see you! What brings ya by?”

“Oh,” Ivy sighed, “Y/N was just asking if we knew anything about her father.”

“Ya Daddy? Nah, nothing,” Harley shook her head, “nada. Wish I did, babes, sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Y/N said with a sad smile, “I get it, mum’s private.”

“Babes,” Harley sighed, cupping Y/N’s face, “Selina keeps things private for a reason, to keep you safe, and that’s probably why she ain’t told us anything, cause we’d tell ya. I can’t blame her really.”

“Me neither,” said Ivy, “we aren’t parents, so we don’t know what would be the right thing to do.”

Harley nodded “Exactly, but know one thing, babes, me and Ivy will always be here for ya.”

“We helped Selina raise you from a seedling,” Ivy stroked Y/n’s hair, “we see you as our own in a way.”

“Thank you, Aunties.”

_______________________________________________________________

When Y/N got home she opened the door to her home to see her mother standing in the living room with large eyes and opposite her was Jim Gordon. They were clearly having a private conversation as they stopped when Y/N walked in. Y/N frowned at the sight but walked in, dropping her bag.

“Commissioner Gordon, what a surprise!” Y/N said wearily, “what brings you by?”

“Well, I knew Selina when she was a kid,” Jim said, “and please, just Jim will do, Y/N.”

“Really?” Y/N stepped forward and folded her arms, “I didn’t know that.”

“Well, Selina has always been a private person,” Jim smiled at Selina who smiled tightly. Y/N noticed this and watched her mother. Had Jim said something which upset her mother? Was he planning to arrest her or something?

“What were you talking about?” Y/N asked, eyeing Jim up and down.

“Just catching up,” Selina assured Y/N with a smile.

“Mmm,” Y/N nodded, “how’d you meet?”

Jim and Selina sighed and met each other’s gaze.

“Actually, I cannot say the details,” Jim admitted, “but it was through a case – a murder. Your mother was a possible witness.”

“Really?” Y/N frowned and looked at her mother who awkwardly looked down.

“It’s not something I like to talk about,” Selina said, “I was a kid on the streets, things like that happened more than I care to admit.”

“Oh, mum…”

“Anyway, it was good to see you, Selina,” Jim said, “and think about what I said, please, you know he’d like to.”

“I made that decision a long time ago, Gordon,” Selina told the man, “and I don’t plan on changing my mind anytime soon. Anyway, it’s too late to now anyway.”

“It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t find out eventually,” Jim pointed out. Y/N just frowned, not knowing what they were speaking about. “Anyway, I should go. My wife and kids await.”

“Goodbye, Jim,” Selina said, leading the man to the door, “it was good to see you.”

“You too, Selina,” Jim said, stopping in the doorway and looking at the woman, “I’m glad to see you’ve gotten yourself on your feet, and to see you have such a lovely daughter. I’m proud of you, Cat.”

“Thank you, Jim,” Selina smiled as Jim left, closing the door behind him. Selina turned and faced Y/N, who frowned at her mother.

“What the hell was that about?”

“It’s something from a long time ago,” Selina waved it off with a sigh, “I was young, a different person. You weren’t born.”

“Was it about that case? The one you witnessed?”

“In a sense,” Selina sat down, “it was about a relative of the victims. But I was involved in a few cases, it could’ve been about any of them.”

“Like what?”

“There were two people who abducted street kids,” Selina said, “Jerome Valaska, which I think I’ve told you about.”

“Yes,” Y/N nodded with a shudder. “I remember finding that YouTube video of his attack on the Gotham Police Station when I was nine. I had nightmares for months.”

“And that’s why I put blocks on certain things online,” Selina said sitting down, “I remember you waking up and screaming in the middle of the night. It traumatized you. And I hope the sick freak who put it online gets hit by a car. Karma! Then there was Barbra Keen, lord knows what happened to her. She sort of dropped off the earth around a few years back, but I’ve heard she’s in Central City now anyway. Look, what I’m saying is there is a lot of horrible things in the past, and that’s why I haven’t told you about what I’ve witnessed or all of what I’ve been through. It’s horrible, Kitten.”

“Okay Mum,” Y/N nodded as she sat next to Selina and snuggled into her mother’s side like she did as a child. She rested her head on her mother’s chest and wrapped an arm around her mother’s middle. Selina sighed and leaned back in the sofa, wrapping her daughter in her arms and kissing the top of her head. Y/N inhaled deeply and the scent of her mother’s perfume provided comfort to her - Vivienne Westwood Boudoir. Classy and Selina Kyle.

“How was it round Ivy and Harley’s?” Selina said quietly into her daughter’s hair.

“Nice,” Y/N yawned as she suddenly felt tired. It was amazing that, regardless of how old Y/N was, all Selina had to do to get her baby girl to sleep was wrap her up in her arms and talk in a soothing voice.

“Close your eyes, Baby,” Selina cooed, “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

“Okay, Mama.”

________________________________________________________________

Selina and Jim didn’t talk about Selina being a witness to a crime as a child, no, they spoke about what Jim knew, and when Selina confirmed it, Jim knew he had to talk with Alfred. He called the old friend and asked him to meet in a bar.

“Commissioner Gordon,” Alfred nodded as he took the seat in the booth opposite Jim, “What is this about? And why did you wish to meet here and not at Wayne Manor? You know Bruce will always be pleased to see you.”

“This is about Bruce, in a sense at least,” Jim explained, “and it isn’t my place to tell him what this is about.”

“Is it my place?”

“No,” Jim shook his head, “this is Selina Kyle’s place to tell Bruce.”

“Selina Kyle?” Alfred frowned, “what is this about, Jim? What does Selina Kyle know?”

Jim sighed and shook his head “It’s not what she knows, Alfred, it’s about what she’s hidden…”

“Jim, just tell me.”

“That Jason’s girlfriend,” Jim said quietly, “what’d you know about her?”

“Not much,” Alfred shrugged, “Jason’s Lab partner, raised by a single mother, an only child, and her father was killed at Penguin’s in a crossfire, why?”

“Her father isn’t dead, Alfred, her father is alive and well.”

“You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, Commissioner, are you?”

“Bruce Wayne is her father.”

“And what does Selina Kyle have to do with this?”

“Don’t you know Y/N’s surname?” Jim blinked.

“No.”

“Her name is Y/N Calabrese Kyle,” Jim explained, “And she’s the daughter of Selina Kyle.”

“Selina and Bruce?” Alfred mumbled, “I suppose I’ve always suspected on some level that the two of them had feelings for one another, but I never thought that they’d act on them.”

“Oh, they acted on them alright.”

“How’d you know?” Alfred asked, “Who she was?”

“I saw it in her the moment we met in Bruce’s office,” Jim explained, “after that all I did was look at Hospital record to see that Selina Kyle gave birth to a baby girl nearly 20 years ago, which made sense because there was a yearlong hiatus in her actions as Catwoman. On the birth certificate, Bruce is listed as the father, but I suspected Bruce was the father automatically, and not because of the history between Selina and Bruce, but because of her eyes. Look at Y/N’s eyes, Alfred, she’s a Wayne, then I went to see her and ask if it was true.”

“And she confirmed this?”

“Yes,” Jim nodded, “Y/N is Bruce’s child.”

“Do you know what this means?” Alfred muttered, “After Bruce passes, God forbid, then lawyers will look to see the next Wayne Heir. They will track her down, does Selina know this?”

“Yes, she does, but doesn’t want her daughter to know this.”

“Why not? Bruce would be more than happy to provide for this child and Y/N is an admirable young woman, Bruce has met her and said so himself.”

“Selina is Selina,” Jim sighed, “remember Bruce left the city for ten years, and Selina was hurt, beyond hurt.”

“So she’s keeping Bruce in the dark about his child because of petty anger?”

“No, she’s doing this because she’s scared Bruce will leave again, and this time Selina isn’t the only one who’d get hurt. Y/N would too.”

“Oh…” Alfred sighed and sat back. Course. It made sense when he thought about it. Alfred remembered the pain in Selina’s eyes when she saw Bruce had left, and he could understand why she wouldn’t want her baby to experience that same pain. Bruce was unpredictable, but he kept his promise of never leaving the city again, but how could Selina be sure? She thought he’d never leave her the first time, but he did.

“I suppose their reunion was more than they expected though,” Jim pointed out. Bruce returned to the city over twenty years ago now, and Y/N was nineteen, that meant that one of the first times the two were reunited, they conceived Y/N. “Does she know that Bruce is her father?”

“No,” Alfred said, “she’s convinced her father died in Penguin’s in a crossfire, saving Selina, who was pregnant with her.” Alfred looked at his old friend, “did you try and convince her to tell Y/N? Or Bruce?”

“She said she made her mind up 19 years ago, and she’s sticking to it.”

“She was always stubborn.”

“But Alfred this isn’t our place to tell either Y/N or Bruce,” Jim said, “okay?”

“I understand,” Alfred nodded. He truly did.

[douxreviews]

Gotham - ‘The Beginning’ Review

Penguin: "I did not spend ten years in Blackgate to give my city to a man dressed like a bat!"

Me, watching the Gotham series finale and being confused that Gordon still doesn't have the iconic stache? It's more likely than you think.

If we're being honest, I could have watched a series finale that consisted of forty minutes featuring only Batman repeatedly foiling foolish and bumbling plots orchestrated by Penguin and Riddler, and walked away with zero complaints. Instead what we have is a suitcase-overstuffed-with-too-many-Tommy-Bahama-shirts of a plot that should have ran ninety minutes condensed into forty minutes. And yet, dare I say, I actually enjoyed this finale for what it was. It's flawed, contrived in some areas, and possesses a plot so convoluted, Donnie Darko is jealous, but I didn't walk away from the conclusion to Gotham feeling I had been cheated of something. But maybe that's just me coming to terms with the fact that no amount of time-jumps or finality are going to salvage the aspects of Gotham that are poor in quality.

The time-jump takes us ten years into the future, long after Gordon has been promoted and Bruce has left Gotham City. It's beyond me why this series chose to make such a drastic time-jump though, yet keep most of their cast members looking like they haven't aged a day. What's that? Oh right, how could I forget: they threw some purple hair dye in Lee's locks, now I can rest easy with that gripe.

Why Bruce went to a Tibetan-looking village specifically, we don't know, but something-something-bats happens, and he returns to his home city with a mission to drive out any trace of criminal activity he comes across, putting him on the radar of the mayor and the GCPD. At the same time, Jeremiah puts into motion a plot that for some reason needs to involve his escape from Arkham, Penguin, Riddler, the framing of Bullock for murder (I guess nobody bothered to dust the handgun that the victim – not Bullock – shot himself with for fingerprints?), and an immense collection of explosives to topple the new Wayne Tower. While Gotham has always had difficulties finding a consistent identity, it has mostly always walked a fine line between 'gritty' and 'campy,' and this is especially evident and welcomed in this finale, with certain sequences paying homage to the Year One comic, and others feeling like they were pulled right off of a Adam West Batman reel. I will also point out how the cinematography in this finale nicely contrasts the dark, dulled colors of everything before in Season 5, by giving us many vibrant, energetic scenes instead.

Another nice advantage a finale like this has compared to literally the entire series before it is that Gotham no longer needs to feel obligated to insert various easter eggs and set-ups for future characters; rather, it's allowed to take the cast it's been guiding towards their fated roles, and just allow them to be that. In other words, Gotham had freedom in this episode to do really whatever it wanted with the story now that there was no need for any further world-building, even if that story is borderline nonsensical at times.

I'm not sure yet even as I write this how I feel about David Mazouz and Camren Bicondova not returning to reprise their respective roles. Lili Simmons is fine as an older Selina and the resemblance between her and Camren is actually a little uncanny, but I can't imagine how much of a sucker punch it must feel to play so brilliantly the part of Bruce Wayne or Selina Kyle for five years and then learn that you won't even get a chance to put on the Batman-suit (which has this aesthetic to it that summoned some unpleasant memories of Batman and Robin) or Catwoman-costume when the finale is all said and done.

While we're on the subject of costumes, I have to give praise for Cory and Robin, and their input into the final designs for Riddler and Penguin; Riddler's outfit feels like a nice fusion of the spandex suit from Batman Forever, and the more formal wear from the Arkhamverse games, while Penguin's feels like it was inspired directly by the Burgess Meredith outfit. Perhaps issue may be taken with the fact that they may not seem as intellectually apt as before, or that Batsy got the best of them so quickly, but isn't that the whole point? From here on out, the feeling of being curbed by Batman's grappling hook is going to become practically routine for them. A service is done to the term 'callback' as well with Penguin and Gordon's scene on the docks, one I just wished hadn't been spelled out previously in the trailers, and Penguin's decision to taunt Gordon before pulling his trigger, evoking Riddler's words to him back in 'Heavydirtysoul': "Instead of killing me when you had the chance, you've decided to feed your ego."

I wasn't sold immediately on Jeremiah's final look as Joker from the promotional material. If I may be blunt, I miss the green curls, and scrutinized for days leading up to this finale over why the costume designers found inspiration for this look in The Walking Dead's whisperers. Cameron Monaghan though, in the precious five minutes of screen time he's given, succeeds in making Joker (or 'J' as he's now referring to himself as) once again feel like a distinct entity separate from Jerome or Jeremiah, as well as from previous live-action interpretations of the source material. It almost sounded as though he was channeling a Christopher Walken caricature, and the indication that he may find Batman just as, or even more, fascinating to obsess over as Bruce is pretty amusing to me. I'm not sure I understand even in reflection why he needed to frame Bullock as part of his whole operation though. It's in Bullock too where one of my major gripes with this episode lies, and it is how Bullock just feels more now as a plot point used to move other components of the story along. For example, why on Earth would an experienced detective like Bullock go alone to investigate a lead, how on Earth could an experienced detective like Bullock single-handily be bested by a single uppercut from around a corner, and I don't believe that an experienced detective like Bullock would keep the fact that someone set him up from Gordon of all people.

The actual execution of how to sell Batman in a finale like this is a tricky thing. On the one hand, I initially entertained this notion that Batman is never completely seen, but still his presence is felt. By the end though, what was also felt was that this episode seemed to be going out of its way to not show you the dark knight. Take for instance the final scene between him and Selina where Selina has her outburst, denouncing Bruce for walking out on her ten years ago. In most cases, I would think this is the type of conversation that warrants a face-to-face interaction. Instead, Selina chooses to keep her back to Batman in a rather impractical manner so that we as the audience are forced to stay focused on her for the entire exchange.

At the end of it all, Season 5 of Gotham is quite frankly, all over the place, and for me, its entertainment value and quality never ended up topping 'Ruin' or '13 Stitches.' Too many subplots that ended up receiving no payoff in the end each scrambled for control anyway over the season's narrative, costing the audience opportunities to see further developments of Bruce's transition into Batman, why Selina ended up choosing to not leave the city with Oswald, the strange attachment Nygma had with his question mark playing card, and a supposed allusion to a comic the showrunners couldn't reveal the title of at the time because it would be considered too much a 'spoiler.' It is dispiriting that this is the note Gotham goes out on for me because I will in fact miss many of these characters and all of this cast as it's been clear for a while that each of the actors have been making the effort to go 110% with what they're given to work with. My final thoughts shouldn't suggest either that this is the verdict by which I'm forced to remember this series by, au contraire, I'd instead prefer to look back on Gotham and judge it by the chapters it was able to execute wonderfully, among which include 'Penguin's Umbrella,' 'Welcome Back, Jim Gordon,' 'This Ball of Mud and Meanness,' 'Mad Grey Dawn,' 'The Gentle Art of Making Enemies,' 'How the Riddler Got His Name,' 'The Primal Riddle,' 'Pax Penguina,' 'That Old Corpse,' and 'Ruin.'

When I get right down to it in its entirety, the closing words to Grand Canyon just about sum it up; "I think it's not all bad."

Aaron Studer loves spending his time reading, writing and defending the existence of cryptids because they can’t do it themselves.

[fannishcodex]

Look I’m enjoying all this talk of Blue Morpho, and speaking of him being bi.

Tbh I have a rareship: Blue Morpho(Vendata)/Red Death.

Red Death is like the first and only person to show real respect or any positive feeling for Vendata at all, and that just gets to me.

Okay tbh I’ve sorta shipped this since season 6, just through the vaguest of hints and because it sounded interesting to me.

In season 6, it mainly revolves around some vague indications that Red Death could’ve known the original Blue Morpho.

It’s indicated that Red Death’s been around a while, maybe even long enough to have known Blue Morpho. That’s about it, an indication leading to fun speculation.

But then there’s the fact that Red Death goes straight to the Morpho cave not long after he gets involved with the Blue Morpho case and the false threat to his wife and daughter. Nothing has still been made of this in canon, but it’s like Red Death simply knew the Morpho’s base of operations the whole time. (It may just be glossed over, but it’s fun to speculate, and good for fic.) 

Red Death does seem like a generally chill and nice dude--but I sorta feel like he does have a soft spot for Monarch in S6. And like that feeling’s grown stronger after S7--to me it felt like Red Death had a particular soft spot for Monarch and his group--Gary/21, Dr. Mrs. (Granted, I also think he’s interacted with them the most so far? But also if that’s the case, that could say something too.)

Like in S6, Red Death first gives Monarch just a warning. Though a little threatening warning, it’s still relatively mild, and preceded by genuine praise for Monarch’s antagonist work (something he rarely gets). Red Death later takes it remarkably easy on the Monarch and 21 for their Blue Morpho and Kano activities, and even helps them out with advice and literal action (though he says it helps sate his violent instincts too--chill and nice dude he may be, but also still vicious, but I find that an interesting mix and fitting for VB.)

In S7, that continues, Red Death still actively helps Team Monarch--there’s no direct interaction between him and the Monarch again this season unfortunately, but Red Death is still helping him and Gary, and now Dr. Mrs. too, in the S7 premiere. Red Death seems to bond further with Dr. Mrs. in a later S7 episode later as they become co-workers on the Council, and seems to partly screw with that rival villain guy because he insulted her. 

I’m just saying maybe Red Death starts with a soft spot for Monarch and his group (and later seems to just bond with them more directly and more for their sakes) because he knew Blue Morpho back in the day.

And I headcanon Blue Morpho and Red Death fell into one of those possibilities in VB that’s cropped up--protagonist and antagonist on surprisingly good terms. Morpho was an unregistered vigilante and prone to being harsher with antagonists, but headcanon he wasn’t unreasonable, and could be more civil with those he felt could do that too. Headcanon Red Death has some different opinions in VB and could successfully navigate those with tact and such--shorter story, unlike most in organized supervillainy, headcanon Red Death would have respected and been fascinated by Morpho’s refusal to register.

Headcanon Red Death does figure out Morpho’s identity, but he likes Morpho enough to not take advantage of that and keep it a secret. He tells no one.

Headcanon Blue Morpho and Red Death did have a thing for a while, before Blue Morpho ever met his future wife. Think something like Batman/Catwoman conceptually. But they did amicably separate, and then Morpho got married, while Red Death remained fond of him, and still held something of a torch tbh, but was respectful of Morpho to never push it.

And again, season 7--with the reveal that Red Death worked with Vendata and respected him, which just made me ship it way harder, even though I believe Red Death had no idea Vendata was Blue Morpho until season 7.

Like on a visceral level, it was so nice to hear someone speak of Vendata with respect when I’ve had to hear a lot of the Guild--looking at you Red Mantle and Dragoon, you two honestly crack me up, but omfg why so mean to Vendata jfc you didn’t even know he was Blue Morpho until S7--insult him for what seems like no reason. I think Red Death was the only one to say anything directly positive about Vendata.

So, S7 had Red Death and Vendata working together. And I keep thinking, how long?

I think S7 diner flashback tries to have Red Death as a sort of young upstart, so you’d think he’d be too young for Blue Morpho’s time. But S6 indicated an older age for him in my mind, and S7 later gave me vibes of Red Death being quite old, with his talk of older villain traditions. And what is Red Death? Again, he’s like this sketetal skinned man--he seems more demonic if anything. He does seem to have supernatural powers, and that horse he rides on? I headcanon Red Death is not quite human, rather supernatural, long-lived, and that his mind may age differently (along with probably seeing the world even more differently from others in VB). Hence he may act more like a young upstart in the diner flashback though he’s actually far older. Heck, maybe so old and with a certain distance from average humanity, maybe he was like, “I’ll just go along with what seems to be the trend these days for this current stab at villainy.” Like he’s such an otherly being, he actually approaches it like another role to play, which could say something about the themes of roleplay in VB (Red Death even talks about “becoming lost in your character” in S6--so Red Death does imply his awareness of and use of roleplay like that). I can see him being this literally otherly being and approaching his supervillainy in like stages during his long life--literally here’s his 70s stage, and here’s his being-on-the-Council stage. (But his wife and daughter inspire new feelings in him. And feeling like he’s otherly doesn’t mean he’s not nice and chill--heck, it could be more why he’s like that. He may be more chill than other humans because he isn’t entirely one. That’s part of what does feel otherly to me tbh--how chill he is.)

After that aside:

Headcanon that maybe Vendata and Red Death worked together for a while. Like Red Death expresses respect for him in the diner, but he doesn’t go into the entirety of their relationship because the current context doesn’t ask for it, and it’s still private.

Red Death has no idea Vendata was Blue Morpho. He does look different without his mustache, and Red Death believed the news of his death. The only similar thing Red Death recognizes without learning the truth for years is that Vendata stirs feelings similar to what he felt for Morpho.

(Headcanon Red Death was aware of Malcom, but thought he should leave him alone with normal people in child care services, assuming he would be taken care of. Red Death was at least aware that Blue Morpho did not want his son near the world of superheroes and supervillains, and wanted to honor those wishes.)

Vendata feels some familiarity for Red Death, but no memories really trigger. But that familiarity feels comfortable, and draws Vendata to Red Death.

Headcanon that Red Death helps Vendata enter supervillainy, and they work together for a relatively long time, they’re allies. They become friends, and more.

Then the Massacre.

I think S7 implies Red Death was disturbed by the Massacre, especially the loss of his own comrades; and I think it implies that Red Death believed Vendata was the ultimate culprit.

Headcanon there was even more to it, like Red Death will only let some of the above out in public, but internally he was far more disturbed by the whole thing. He was really distraught over the loss of Stab Girl and the others. He thought Vendata had caused the Massacre that ended up including Stab Girl and their other allies as collateral damage. Red Death blamed him for it. On some level, Red Death does respect Vendata’s determination to kill the object of his extreme hatred, Jonas; but more strongly, Red Death feels betrayed and disgusted with what he thinks Vendata did to their team for that goal.

Communication breaks down. Red Death strongly believes Vendata is responsible, that he hated Jonas enough to do this. He never actually talks to Vendata about it. He does feel the need for it; but it’s an emotional time, Red Death is emotionally distraught, and in that state is turned off by Vendata’s lack of emotion. He knows Vendata has trouble showing it, but at that point Red Death has less patience for it and more revulsion. Red Death is further repulsed when Vendata seems to be confused by Red Death’s behavior--Red Death storms off, feeling that Vendata should know. Should realize why he’s upset.

Red Death believes Vendata did it, doomed their friends and allies to kill Jonas, and assumes Vendata is aware of what he thinks. But Vendata has no idea. Vendata does have trouble processing emotion because of the whole cyborg thing, and not being a very well built cyborg due to Jonas and later Dr. Z. Vendata feels the loss of Stab Girl and the others and sees Red Death is distraught, but has trouble being the most comforting presence, and has no idea he should be denying something or the real source of Red Death’s turmoil and anger with him.

Red Death leaves Vendata. Between his respect and lingering fondness and understanding of hatred and knowing they were in a dangerous line of work, Red Death would not take direct revenge on Vendata, he couldn’t. But he couldn’t stay with him either.

Vendata accepts this, without fully understanding why.

Vendata and Red Death just drift further away and remain apart in the years after the Massacre. Red Death meets and falls in love with his future wife, has a daughter, and feels like he understands Morpho better. 

Vendata joins the Council. And Red Death wonders what it would be like if he had a seat too. Time’s cooled his rage somewhat--and things are different now. Married, with kids. But things are different--Red Death feels more keenly how he’s drifted away from Vendata.

Red Death finally checks up on Malcom, and though he knows Morpho would have been distressed by it, he’s pleased that Malcom’s become a super villain. 

When Vendata expresses a difficulty connecting with people and his Council members criticizing him for that, he does think of Red Death years ago.

Vendata and Red Death did get in touch a few times, only a few brief phone calls that were simply small updates of each other. Vendata did keep track of Red Death through Guild records. He felt happy when the records changed to reflect Red Death’s marriage, though also a little sad. (It wasn’t just regret over an ex--memories of Red Death from his time as Blue Morpho, memories of his wife were almost triggered. Almost, but not quite. Just vague feelings behind that stirred, but not memories.)

Headcanon that when Red Death realizes Vendata was Blue Morpho the whole time, he thinks “ohfuck.” 

Yeah, so, I ship it. Also I find that I could literally shorten a name for it to Red/Blue cute.

@danvssomethingorother

[daledoesdrafts-blog]

Batman: Usurper Cast of Characters (WIP)

After a long period of deliberation, I’ve finally come up with the list of characters I want to use in my fanfic. It took a while because I needed to figure out which characters were around at the time of Knightfall, and if they weren’t around, would it be feasible that they’d show up during the events of my fanfic? I’ve separated them into Heroes, Villains, and Anti-heroes.

Heroes Tim Drake/Cal Corcoran/Redbird -- The story centers around Tim as Jean Paul Valley continues to disgrace the name of Batman. Bruce once described Tim as the world’s greatest strategist, and my intent is to show him beginning to develop that strategist’s mind. In many of the comics throughout his career, Tim also displays a lack of confidence, believing he has to prove himself to Bruce. Above all else, this is a story about Tim confronting his failures and beginning to realize what he can learn from them.

Bruce Wayne -- I really want to show Bruce struggling to adjust to a life where he can no longer be Batman due to his broken back. The original Knightfall trilogy did this to some extent, but not enough for us to get a feel for how difficult that might be for him, particularly when the people he cares about are still in the fight.

Dick Grayson/Nightwing -- some of my favorite Tim Drake comics are those that have him teaming up with Nightwing. They have a beautiful brotherly relationship that Chuck Dixon repeatedly made better and better. Dick trusted Tim to be Robin long before Bruce did, which is a compliment I imagine Tim didn’t soon forget. Dick also went through a bit of an identity crisis during the events of Knightfall where he began to question whether or not he was mentally fit to be Nightwing or to lead the Teen Titans. Like Tim, I think there’s a lot of opportunity for Dick to confront his demons.

Helena Bertinelli/Huntress -- Tim Drake had developed a partnership with Huntress during the events of the first few Robin comics, helping him take down King Snake and other villains. While Batman didn’t trust her due to her connection to one of Gotham’s crime families, Tim saw her as someone whose knowledge of organized crime would prove invaluable time and again.

Stephanie Brown/Spoiler -- The relationship between Tim Drake and Stephanie Brown is one I’ve come to love, despite Bruce’s initial disapproval of Stephanie. As Tim and Stephanie grew older, their witty banter back and forth as they took down Gotham’s thugs became one of the things I loved best about Robin comics. And like Tim, Stephanie felt the need to prove herself as a crime fighter. Though I enjoyed her time as both Robin and Batgirl, I always loved Stephanie best as Spoiler. Particularly in some of the newer comics, she’s realized she doesn’t need Batman’s approval to fight crime, and I think it’s important that her hero persona reflect that independence.

James Gordon, Harvey Bullock, and Renee Montoya -- For my fanfic, Mayor Krol has stripped Gordon of his job as police commissioner. Justice in Gotham is handled solely by Jean Paul Valley/Batman, which is to say there is no true justice in Gotham anymore. Bullock and Montoya are unwilling to serve under such excessive force, so they turn in their badges to follow Gordon in a vain attempt to restore order to the city.

Alfred Pennyworth -- Alfred doesn’t make much of an appearance in my fanfic. While I don’t think his absence his permanent, he’s become more than a little frustrated with Bruce’s decisions during the events of Knightfall and has decided a break is in order. As much as he cares for Bruce, Dick, and Tim, however, I can’t imagine he’ll be completely out of the picture. I’ve also always liked the Earth One version of Alfred a bit more than the typical depictions of him. Earth One depicts him as not only Bruce’s caretaker, but one of his mentors as well--a man who has seen war and can just as easily kill a man as save his life.

Barbara Gordon/Oracle -- Babs is another one of my favorites. I especially wanted to have her in this story because I’ve always felt like Bruce and Barbara were never very close in the comics. I think Barbara would be an obvious person for Bruce to turn to as he adjusts to his life without the cowl. She’d be someone who could teach him how to continue the war on crime without being an active participant.

Dinah Drake/Black Canary -- Dinah has a small cameo in the story, since I wanted her, Oracle, and Huntress to be in the initial stages of forming the Birds of Prey.

Cassandra Cain/Batgirl -- Although Cassandra wasn’t around during the events of Knightfall, my fanfic takes place a few years after Jean Paul Valley takes up the cowl, so it’s feasible that she would have appeared by then. Each of the Batgirls has a special place in my heart, but Cassandra always struck me as intriguing because she was raised by an assassin, yet of all the Batgirls she seems to have the biggest heart.

Clark Kent/Superman -- I had to do some research on this because the Knightfall and Death/Return of Superman comics take place around the same time. I wasn’t sure if Superman would have returned by the time my story takes place, but multiple sources claim that there was a comic in which Superman checked in with Jean Paul after his return. Jean Paul, however, had lined his cowl with lead so Superman couldn’t see who was wearing the Batsuit. This obviously raised some suspicions for Clark, but apparently not enough for him to investigate further. “Usurper” would have Superman taking a more active role in deposing Jean Paul. I’ve also mentally replaced Superman’s black-and-white, mullet-wearing Return costume with the blue, red, and black costume of Kingdom Come. 

Villains

Jean Paul Valley/Azrael/Batman -- The idea of Batman as a villain excites me to no end, and while Jean Paul isn’t the true Batman (however much he might wish it were so), he represents what Bruce might become if he ever breaks his rule not to kill. It’s also going to be interesting to explore Batman from the perspective of those he hunts--how terrifying that would be, especially knowing that this Batman kills. Jean Paul strikes me as somewhat of a tragic villain--he’s a man who believes he’s doing good, but ultimately is no better than the criminals he kills. He fears that without the brainwashing of the Order of St. Dumas, he’ll be nothing, which sadly is what he ultimately becomes.

The Order of St. Dumas -- The Order is responsible for Jean Paul’s brainwashing into becoming Azrael, and their influence on him is always present as he continues to have hallucinations of his father and St. Dumas throughout the Knightfall trilogy. The purpose of this brainwashing, however, is never quite explained. Presumably, the Order wanted Azrael to become an avenging angel of Gotham--one who would deal with its criminal element in a permanent fashion as opposed to Batman’s temporary one. “Usurper” takes it a step further, with the Order revealing themselves to be a fascist organization bent on placing Gotham under their martial law.

Victor Zsasz -- From the time I first read the Knightfall trilogy, I always loved how creepily realistic Zsasz seemed compared to a lot of Batman’s other villains. The concept of a man who carves tallies of the number of people he’s killed into his skin fits into the grittiness of Gotham perfectly. Even the fact that his eyes in Knightfall were merely dark slits from which two white specs stared hungrily drew me towards wanting to write a Batman story with Zsasz in it.

Joker -- Like Alfred, I don’t think Joker will show up very much. If anything, I feel like Joker is better in small doses, rather than in long story arcs. Part of what makes his character so good is the mystery behind him, and the longer he’s around, the less mystery there is and the less creepy and unpredictable he becomes. That being said, I’m interested in showing a darker Joker here than what appears in the Knightfall comics. In Batman and Son, Grant Morrison suggests that Joker goes through periods in which his personality changes, making him even more unpredictable, and currently I’m thinking we’ll get to see Joker go from a campier character to the grittier villain we see in comics by Brian Azzarello and Scott Snyder.

The Court of Owls -- This secret society appeared in the first two volumes of Scott Snyder’s run of Batman comics in 2011, yet Snyder suggests that the Court has existed in Gotham since its creation. Again, I don’t intend for the Court to show up much (or, perhaps, at all), but Tim and the rest of the Bat-family will start to hear hints and rumors of their existence.

Anti-heroes Bane -- Bane has little more than a cameo appearance in my story. Rather than turning Bane over to police custody, Jean Paul gives him an almost lethal dose of the super-steroid called Venom. He’s rushed to the hospital where he remains in a comatose state. His gang, however, remains active in both Gotham and Santa Prisca. Tim contacts them to learn more about how Bane managed to defeat Batman and take over Gotham.

Edward Nigma/Riddler -- For a brief period, some of the Batman comics featured Riddler as a detective who solved Gotham’s most puzzling crimes. The idea intrigued me, so I’ve revitalized it for “Usurper.”

Harvey Dent/Two-Face -- This rendition of Harvey is greatly inspired by Scott Snyder’s All Star Batman 1: My Own Worst Enemy, in which Batman is forced to work with Harvey while his Two-Face persona works against them. For “Usurper,” I imagined Harvey’s deep desire to save Gotham from corruption, which might lead him towards working with Tim and the rest of the Bat-family. Two-Face, however, still holds a deep hatred for everything Bat related, and would simultaneously seek to foil Tim’s plans.

Selina Kyle/Catwoman -- Selina had a fairly large role in Knightfall, partly due to the fact that she was one of the few people who immediately knew that Bruce was no longer wearing the mantle of the Bat. Jean Paul also had a disgustingly crude lust for Catwoman that Selina was able to exploit in order to escape his grasp. As much as Selina cares for Bruce, I can only imagine she’d want to aid in removing Jean Paul from the role of Batman.

Shiva -- Shiva was one of Tim’s biggest mentors while he was learning to be Robin, but was frequently disappointed by his refusal to kill. Although their relationship started as one of mutual respect, Tim’s regard for her soured after she convinced King Snake to hold a personal vendetta against him. Shiva is also one of the martial artists Bruce turned to while he learned how to be Batman again.

Pamela Isley/Poison Ivy -- While Poison Ivy was still very much a villain during the events of Knightfall, ultimately her character has always had Gotham’s best interests in mind (even in those interests meant the genocide of humanity). She’s gradually become less of an eco-terrorist and more of an anti-hero, working with Harley Quinn and Catwoman as the Sirens. “Usurper” introduces her to the idea that, while she’s not wrong in wanting Gotham to be a more eco-friendly city, her methods are unjust.

Victor Fries/Mr. Freeze -- Freeze is by far one of my favorite anti-heroes. He’s a man who will do anything if it means saving his wife, Nora. “Usurper” has him teaming with Tim after the Cataclysm leaves him desperate to fix the machines which keep his wife in cryostasis.

Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow -- This is probably one of the characters I’m most excited to work with. “Usurper” has Crane rethinking his ways after a recent pummeling by Bruce/Batman. He begins to see that his obsession with fear was born out of his own personal demons, which he hopes to overcome in order to become the true Master of Fear. During this process of rediscovering himself, Tim approaches Crane under the alias Cal Corcoran with the idea of employing his toxins as a new weapon in the Bat-arsenal. While working together, Tim introduces Crane to the concept of using fear for a good purpose rather than for one’s own pleasure. While Crane’s psychosis isn’t entirely cured, his life is given new purpose as he begins a life preying on Gotham’s criminals.

Ra’s al Ghul and the League of Assassins -- Ever since I read Red Robin 2: Collision by Chris Yost, I’ve loved the idea of Tim Drake and Ra’s al Ghul teaming up/fighting against each other. Both are incredible strategists who utilize all of their assets in order to win the fight. “Usurper” has Ra’s realizing Bruce is no longer Batman and making a move on Gotham while he believes it to be weakened. When he discovers that Tim is attempting to depose Jean Paul, however, he proposes an alliance that he hopes will lead towards Gotham’s destruction. Talia al Ghul and Damian Wayne also make appearances. 

[81scorp]

Constructive criticism: DCEU in general

(Originally posted on Deviantart Mar 23, 2018. Has been edited a few times)

I am a big DC fan. When I was little and couldn`t even read, Superman was the first comicbook superhero I was introduced to. The second one was the Hulk.I am however not one of those DC fans who completely ignore the flaws of the DCEU movies. I have studied dramaturgy and I have seen several educational videos on youtube on how to make movies competently.The DCEU movies have two problems. One is the vision of Zack Snyder who who has to make every heroic character into a damaged, dark and depressed antihero who is reluctant to help others. Snyder has however left the DCEU, partly because of a family tragedy but also because he was fired. (I want you to know that in this case I separate the art from the artist. From what I`ve heard Snyder is a nice guy, he has my sympathies.) So with Snyder gone the DCEU technically only has one problem left, and in this case the problem lies with Warner Bros: The movies are too rushed. WB are too concerned with catching up to Marvel than to take their time and tell a good story. If they had taken their time and planned things out beforehand they could have made it much better. It also helps that Marvel, who understand their comics more, have their own studio. If I could run so fast that I could screw the laws of physics, travel backwards in time and change these movies, this is what I would have done.

2013: Man of Steel Make a few changes, like Pa Kent not telling little Clark that maybe he should`ve let those kids in in the bus die. (Yes, I know, he didn`t say it directly, but it was in the subtext.) I`ve gone into more detail about it in my constructive criticism of Man of Steel.

2014: Wonder Woman Yes, it has a few flaws, but I`m not gonna change a thing... with one exception. That scene where Diana gets a package from Bruce with the photo of her and Steve Trevor. Remove it from this film and put it as a mid-credit scene in Batman v Superman. (I mean, in this hypothetical Flashpoint universe WW comes out before BvS, so it works) 2015: Green Lantern Parallax is not the villain, but Sinestro. See my constructive criticism of it. 2015: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Remove and change all the stupid stuff. (Once again, I`ve gone into more details about this movie`s shortcomings in a previous constructive criticism.) Here`s one thing I would like to add though: Amanda Waller has a cameo in this movie. (She could be one of the people in the interview montage that gives their two cents about Superman and how he affects our world.) And after Batman v Superman I would have made two solo movies, one for the Flash and one for Aquaman (not necessarily in that order) to properly flesh out and develop their characters before Justice League. That way, there`ll be enough room for Cyborg and Steppenwolf to get sufficient character developement.

2016: The Flash In this version Barry is not Sheldon Cooper-ish. Plot Barry`s mom was killed when he was a kid and his dad was framed for the murder. Barry grows up and studies to become a crime scene investigator. He is friends with journalist Iris West. (They are not a romantic couple... yet.) Meanwhile: Somewhere else, a guy named Mark Mardon is being tested as a human guinea pig by some unknown man who`s face we don`t get to see. The tests on Mardon finally give results: He developes superpowers, more specifically: weather manipulation powers. To test his powers he creates a thundercloud. Meanwhile: Barry Allen is ready to go home after a hard work day. He`s about to shut the window when he gets hit by lightning and thrown into a case full of rare chemicals that the police have confiscated from a gang of criminals. He wakes up the next day at the hospital. Later he discovers that he has become superfast, but he also realizes that it is not ordinary superspeed. If it was, his clothes would burn up from the air friction, so it`s something more than just superspeed. He does an act of heroism, while hiding his face by wearing a red hoodie jacket, and realizes that he could become a superhero. (He`s also inspired by Superman who gets mentioned on the news.) Speaking of the news: Amanda Waller gets interviewed on TV, she mentions that a special jail has been built that`s strong enough to hold superpowered individuals. She thinks that it`s a necessity after the destruction of Metropolis. He studies hard with the forensic science stuff while making his Superherocostume from scratch. Mark Mardon goes around and steals hi-tech devices and chemicals, things that are sciency in general. Turns out the confiscated, rare chemicals that, combined with lightning, turned Barry into a Superspeedster are some of the chemicals that are needed to make the drug that triggered Mardon`s latent superpowers. Mardon steals the science stuff because of a quid pro quo thing: The unknown scientist gave him powers so that he could lash back at society (He`s a jerk with a crappy childhood) and in return, he uses his powers to help the scientist do more illegal science stuff. Barry fights Mardon and wins. Mardon gets taken to the special jail by Amanda Waller`s goverment guys. Barry visits his dad in jail to tell him that he`s passed the test and is now a licensed forensic scientist. Iris figures out Flash`s secret identity but keeps her discovery a secret. (This could be revisited in a possible sequel.) Mardon also gets visited in jail. We never see the face of his visitor but we see that he`s... wearing a yellow version of the Flash`s costume? And... he seems to be vibrating, and his voice is vibrating too. The man tells Mardon that he`s willing to give him a second chance, not yet though, maybe in the future. But if Mardon screws up a second time there will be no more second chances... ever. Mardon gulps and understands. Pre-credit epilogue or mid-credit scene: Barry is out late at night running as the flash and runs into Superman who asks him if he wants to join his team. Barry`s answer is a mischievous smile. 2016: Aquaman I`m gonna borrow a little from Lion King on this one. Plot It begins with a mother telling a bedtime story to her son about the atlantean kingdom. How the Princess of Atlantis got married to a man that turned out to be cruel and when the princess realized that she ran away and left the kingdom. One day she would return, save her people and end the evil man`s tyrrany. The mother and her son both suffer from a condition: they need to rehydrate a little more often than normal people (either by drinking an extra glass of water or take a bath/shower) or else they`ll get weak. The mother needs to rehydrate every sixth hour, her son every eighth hour. The mother`s name is Atlanna, she`s married to a lighthouse keeper named Tom Curry and her son is named Arthur. Atlanna has a nickname for her son: Orin, which is the Atlantean version of "Arthur". When Arthur gets older his mom disappears for a few months every year but always comes back. As time goes by Arthur starts to discover that he has powers: He can breathe underwater, control underwater creatures and developes superhuman strength and stamina. One day Atlanna disappears and doesn`t come back. Arthur suspects that his mother`s stories are true and his father confirms that they are indeed true and tells him about his first meeting with Atlanna, how he found her washed up on the shore. Arthur and his dad say their goodbyes and he starts to look for his mom and the city of Atlantis. After some searching he finally finds Atlantis, meets the resistance who are trying to overthrow Orm Marius aka: the Ocean Master. Ocean Master has a henchman: King Shark. He meets Mera, a leader of the resistance, finds out that he has to go on a quest to find "the trident of Atlan". After going though lots of troubles he and Mera finds the place where the trident is hidden and he is reunited with his mother. Atlanna has been wounded (it happened years ago), she can still move around and give orders but she can`t engage in most kinds of strenuous activities, like close combat. She`s sorry for leaving Arthur but she couldn`t just stay with him and his father knowing that her people were suffering. Arthur understands. He tries and succeeds in getting the trident from the giant sea monster that guards after it has deemed him worthy. In the end the resistance is victorious, Ocean Master is defeated and believed to be dead, Atlanna abdicates and is reunited with Thomas Curry. Arthur is crowned the next king of Atlantis. One day he visits his parents to tell them how things are going. As Arthur and his parents have their reunion a woman comes walking, It`s Wonder woman in civilian clothing. She tells Arthur that her people and his people were once allies thousands of years ago. She wonders if he`s interested in rekindling that alliance. Arthur finds her proposal intriguing. ( I changed my version a few months after I had seen the movie to be more similar to James Wan`s version.) (And yes, I`m aware that I`m following the Marvel formula with these two examples, but what Marvel is doing is working.) 2017: Justice League See my constructive criticism of it.

2017: Suicide Squad See my constructive criticism of it. And after that... 2018: Solo Batman movie Batman fights crime with his old partner Dick Grayson who calls himself Nightwing now. Barbara has been struggling to walk again for years. Catwoman appears in a few scenes. The movie`s villain could be... I dunno... Clayface? Mid-credit scene: Barbara learns to walk again. It is strongly hinted that she`s gonna batsuit up in a future movie. 2018: Man of Steel sequel Superman meets Supergirl and fights Brainiac. Detective John Jones can be introduced in this one.Followed by...

2019: Batgirl and Supergirl: World`s Finest Batgirl and Supergirl team up to fight a threat and become friends. John Jones is revealed to be Martian Manhunter.

2019: Wonder woman sequel It would take place in modern time, chronologically after the first Justice league or the Batgirl and Supergirl movie. Maybe Circe could be the villain?

2019: Shazam! Just do the David F. Sandberg version with Zachary Levi. It was pretty good. 2020: Justice League 2 Justice League fights Legion of Doom.

2020: Solo Cyborg movie

Green Lantern Sequel Hal recruits Jon Stewart to help him keep the peace in sector 2814.

The Flash Sequel

Aquaman sequel

(doesn`t necessarily have to be in that order), and after that...

New gods The story of New Genesis and Apokolips. Of how "Scott Free" grows up in the hell that is Apokolips and manages to escape with the help of Orion and his former enemy turned ally Big Barda. In the end he manages to escape to Earth where he meets the Justice League. Man of Steel 3: Doomsday Superman fights Doomsday and dies. Followed by...

Justice League 3 Remember the opening to Justice League with the two kids interviewing Supes for their podcast? I would save that scene for the beginning of this movie instead. It would be followed by a montage of people trying to get on with their lives, people leaving flowers at a memorial dedicated to Superman, and Lois, Supergirl and Batman still mourning. All this to a sad cover of "Running up that hill". Earth is invaded by Apokolips and Superman is back from the dead... as a servant of Darkseid. Flash/Wonder Woman/Supergirl tries to snap him out of it, telling him he`s not a weapon. Supes snaps out of it and fights Darkseid. Apokolips retreats, Earth is saved once again. Hooray! And that`s how I would do it. The sad thing is, DC has done this shared universe thing before and done it well: the Arrowverse and the DC Animated Universe. I used to wonder if Marvel was ever gonna get a good movie made. Now I wonder if DC is ever gonna get a good movie again. WB, please make better DC films.        

[mightyville]

(Originally published on July 27, 2012)

The Dark Knight Rises - The MightyVille Review

The long-anticipated third film in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy is finally here! The Dark Knight has risen, and MightyVille reviews it to let you know if the film we’ve been excited to see since pretty much the end of The Dark Knight lived up to our high expectations. We try not to reveal many plot spoilers here, but if you want to go into the movie with a completely blank slate, we warn you to click away now...

So, is The Dark Knight Rises worth the years of anticipation? Is it a fitting ending to Christopher Nolan’s trilogy?

YES!

The film is truly outstanding. Excellent direction, amazing action and cinematography, great acting, riveting storyline’s got it all! Who knows? It may even receive Oscar nominations.

But is it my favorite superhero film? No. I prefer my superheroes fun, colorful, and a wee bit more on the family-friendly side. But it’s a brilliant film nonetheless, and for true fans of a darker Dark Knight, it is likely everything they had hoped for.

The Dark Knight Rises begins with some of the most intense and exciting action I have ever seen at the start of a film. Much like the bank robbery scene in The Dark Knight, the opening starts it all off with a bang and gives us a taste of what we can expect from Batman’s foes for the rest of the adventure. When the tale moves next to Gotham City, we get caught up on what has been going on in the eight years that have passed since the previous film’s ending. We are not the only ones who have not seen Batman since then - neither have the citizens of Gotham. Similarly, little trace has been seen of Bruce Wayne, and he has had little involvement in the upkeep of Wayne Manor or running Wayne Enterprises.

Enter Christian Bale, back to reprise his roles as both Bruce Wayne and Batman. If you enjoyed his performance in the first two films, he won’t disappoint you here. Bale does an excellent job of portraying a Wayne who has atrophied and lost confidence during many years away from his role as Batman. This older, less physically adept portrayal carries over into his part as Batman, who, while still an impressive crime-fighter, may not be as great of a match to his enemies as he was in his glory days. Now, Bale is not my favorite actor to play Batman. I find his Bruce Wayne to be on the dull side and his growly delivery of Batman’s lines to be a somewhat silly. But, I must say that he won my sympathy in The Dark Knight Rises as a Bruce Wayne who somewhat reluctantly returns to his role as Batman because Gotham is in desperate need of their hero.

This less than tip-top version of the Wayne/Batman dynamic seems even more challenged when contrasted with the main villain in the film, the mysterious and monstrous Bane. Despite his mask-filtered voice that occasionally bordered on comedic (my husband, MightyVille’s own Joe Kach, compares it to Adam Sandler’s character Opera Man), I found Bane to be a credible and petrifying villain. He is of the most frightening kinds of villains: strong, fearless, confident, HUGE, and with absolutely nothing to lose. Due to his tortured past, he brings depth to his villainy through his personal understanding of how fear, despair and hope can affect people. His expressed intention to bring down the rich and lift up the people of Gotham is also poignant to the current times and makes it believable that some of Gotham’s citizens would follow him rather than be repulsed by him. All in all, Tom Hardy proves himself to be an extremely talented actor, able to express so much despite most of his face being covered by a mask. He’s also quite a terrifyingly large, muscular specimen of a man.

At times in the film, it seems that it will be impossible for Batman to save Gotham from the destruction that Bane and other villains have planned. But in many ways, this is not just a film about Batman, but about the citizens of Gotham, rising up to save their city with the help of a masked hero. Gary Oldman is back as Commissioner James Gordon, and we are also introduced to another devoted Gotham City copper, John Blake, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Gordon-Levitt puts in a solid performance as Blake, your average “good cop” hero who’s faith in Batman never waivers. I wondered at times why so much focus and screen time was being given to this character, but this question was resolved by the end of the film. Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate also jumps into the action at times. She also seemed to receive too much focus at first, but the importance of her role was ultimately made clear.

And then, of course, there’s Ann Hathaway as Catwoman! She is a Selina Kyle like no others seen on screen, and is effective in making the character her own. Hathaway’s Catwoman is a sly, slinky, self-reliant woman who is as jaded and opportunistic as most of Gotham residents. She is neither bad nor good, but instead is doing what it takes to survive in her urban habitat, much like a cat. “I’m adaptable,” she declares. Hathaway is believable as an efficient “cat” burglar that is capable of getting what she wants when she wants, as well as holding her own in a fight. Her “cat” suit is less a costume than an effective tool for pulling off the most challenging of thefts. Hathaway has revealed in interviews that she based her portrayal primarily after the Felonious Female of the comics, rather than mimicking previous onscreen versions, and she succeeds in making this Catwoman more recognizable to lovers of the DC Comic.

The only character who let them me down in the film was Alfred. I had heard he had an expanded role in The Dark Knight Rises, but it seems that all he does in this film is cry and pout about his disagreement with the idea of Batman returning. I was really turned off by his consistent blathering about wanting to protect Wayne. He seemed to be taking his role as a father figure too far, and I wondered where he lost his British stiff upper-lip. This is not to fault Michael Caine’s acting, which was good as usual, but more the way the character was written.

That being said, the writing for The Dark Knight Rises overall is spectacular, with a script handled by Johnathon Nolan and David Goyer. The story is very well put together and thought out, with a number of exciting plot twists to thrill us by the end of the film. The action is amazing, from football field explosions to airplane crashes to gargantuan mob fight scenes. Batman shows up at all the right times, and each time the effect is exhilarating, with the music and cinematography working in unison. We’re also finally exposed to Nolan’s version of the Batcave, and Batman’s new “toy”: “The Bat” hovercraft is awe-inspiring. Even the well-timed return of the Batpod cycle and the Bat-Signal were spectacular, providing as much hope to the audience as they did to Gotham’s residents.

Finally, much has been said and speculated about the ending to this film. For me, this was the perfect ending to the film, as well as the trilogy. In fact, it is one of the best endings I have seen to any film. I love that the ending doesn’t try to answer every question and tie up each loose end, but instead sends the trilogy off with a proper goodbye and a glimpse at what the future may hold for some of the characters. I don’t want to give away too much, but I can’t remember the last time I saw so many grown men cry at the end of a movie.

The Dark Knight Rises is not perfect, but it comes near. This is an excellent film that shouldn’t be missed. It has unfortunately received a lot of negative press due to the horrifying shootings that occurred in an Aurora, Colorado midnight opening. As someone who is sensitive to violence in films, I was actually impressed with the way Nolan handled the violence in this movie, with most scenes taking a more classic approach in which the violence is implied rather than shown in every gory detail. I hope that people can disassociate the acts of a mad man from this film that was made for peaceful reasons and actually encourages society to move in a more peaceful and caring direction. The Dark Knight Rises provides a message of hope in dark times, and, in light of recent events, that is something we all need.

The Dark Knight Rises:

Have you seen the final film in the Dark Knight Trilogy? Agree with our review? Or agree to disagree? Let us know!

[topmixtrends]

ROBERT SIKORYAK’S REMARKABLE SKILL often goes unappreciated because of its subtlety. His works are acts of cultural appropriation that deftly mine our comic book memories, filtering history and literature through our understanding of comic book history. His art enables our collective, illustrated past to mediate the present. What do we learn, for example, about the culture that produced iconic figures such as Mary Worth and Rex Morgan, M.D., when these two characters reappear as Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Lady Macbeth? If we, as a culture, haven’t yet come to terms with the extent of the sorrows expressed in Charles Schulz’s many decades of pathos-laden Peanuts strips, Sikoryak reassembles the ideological pieces for us, rendering Kafka’s The Metamorphosis in Schulz’s style and retitling it: “Good ol’ Gregor Brown.” Both of these strips, like all of Sikoryak’s work, demonstrate his keen eye and extraordinary finesse.

Sikoryak, born in 1964, generally signs his name “R. Sikoryak.” He has drawn cover art for The New Yorker, LA Weekly, and The Nation. His work has been featured in Wired magazine as well as in the groundbreaking publication Raw, where he worked together with Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly shortly after graduating from the Parsons School of Design in the late 1980s. In 2009 Sikoryak published his 64-page hardcover collection of literary works reimagined as classic comics Masterpiece Comics, and his Terms and Conditions: The Graphic Novel (2017) — an inspired take on the unreasonable language of user license agreements — was reviewed six months ago in LARB. He currently lives in New York and teaches illustration at Parsons.

I interviewed Sikoryak about Masterpiece Comics and about his recently published book, The Unquotable Trump. The Unquotable Trump is a collection of iconic comic book covers from many decades that have been remastered to show first Candidate Trump, and then President Trump, taking over the respective comic book’s worlds. Sikoryak’s Trump goes head-to-head with the comic world’s most iconic characters, including Neal Adams’s Superman, John Romita’s Spider-Man, and even Warren Kremer’s Richie Rich. For the book, Sikoryak relied only on direct quotes — as its cover boasts, it consists of “Trump in his very own ‘best words!’”

¤

BRAD PRAGER: On several pages of The Unquotable Trump, Trump is seen speaking even when there is no speech in the originals. For example, the cover of your book is based on a cover of the 1975 Marvel Treasury Edition featuring the Incredible Hulk. On that cover, the Hulk is silent, but your “Hulk-Trump” is uttering a number of standard Trumpisms (“Tremendous!,” “Huge!”). A similar change is noticeable on your “Nice Nurse” cover as well, which is based on an issue of Night Nurse from 1973. In the original, the Night Nurse character is actually speaking, defending her patient by saying, “To kill him — you have to shoot me first!!” In your version, we only hear from Trump, while the comic’s heroine is speechless.

As I conceived the book, I felt it was important to only go by what Trump said. The book is obviously critical of him, but within that context, yes, he’s the only one who actually gets to speak. I conceived of the book right before the election. I had seen a series of mini-comics published by someone I don’t know, a series called “Tea Party Comix” consisting of old comics in which Obama had been inserted as the villain. I came upon them through Ethan Persoff’s site, where he posts a lot of obscure comics. My approach is quite different from those. I really wanted the whole world depicted in these covers to be infected by Trump. Even the titles of the books that he’s in have been tailored to fit his perspective. Sometimes the titles are more neutral, like “Subjective Comics,” based on Detective Comics, but on other ones, like the Wonder Woman cover in which she’s not Wonder Woman, but “Nasty Woman,” Trump’s language becomes part of the world that the characters inhabit. These characters do have a voice — they have personalities, and they have humanity — but as far as this book is concerned, everything is shaped by Trump’s perspective, and he drowns out everyone else.

The cover that is most striking for me, and which is most suffused with Trump’s perspective, is Pap Comics, featuring “Archy,” which is based on an issue of Pep Comics from 1952. If you look at the original cover, Archie is as happy as can be. His face is covered in lipstick from Veronica’s kisses. In your version, he is truly miserable. Even in the book’s marketing icon, in the upper right, poor “Archy” is suddenly suffering, wondering how all this has happened. The world has been invaded, much to the chagrin of the characters we know and with whom we identify. This is Pop’s soda shop, and Trump, as Pop, is running the show. Elsewhere, of course, you have him appear as Solomon Grundy or the Red Skull.

I was always trying to find a dynamic where, if Trump wasn’t a villain, he was at least a counterpoint to the main character. He takes the place of Tubby in Little Lulu, for example. Tubby is hardly a super villain but sometimes he’s a pretty bratty kid, so there the equation sort of works.

Several of these covers read differently from the others, including two that I would describe as feminist fantasy inversions: the pairing of the Catwoman cover alongside the one George Perez did of Black Widow from a 1983 Marvel Fanfare. Those covers depict worlds in which the women are in the dominant positions. Black Widow is really carrying the day in the your version of the cover, so the book varies its perspective in that regard, even if Trump comes out on top most of the time.

Those two covers just ended up next to each other. The book is for the most part ordered chronologically. There are one or two pages where I had to shift things around. I really didn’t want to start the book with his famous quote about Mexicans, so I put his quote about building the Wall first. The two were said within the same day, so that’s not such a big change. I tried to follow the campaign’s chronology, but that led to some of the covers echoing one another in odd ways. The two you mention evolved out of the debates.

Some of the covers you’ve chosen seemed as though they were pulled directly out of my own memory bank. I remember collecting some of the Neal Adams and George Perez covers at the time of their appearances, although I had stopped collecting comics by the time the issue of 300 you cite came out in 1998. Your work mines different areas of the adult, nostalgic unconscious. Was there a principle of selection? How did you go back through your conscious and your less conscious memories, deciding what to draw?

I’m sure a lot of the choices are directly attributable to what I was collecting and what I grew up with, but I really didn’t want the book to represent only my perspective. That’s true of Terms and Conditions as well. I was trying to run the gamut of styles and to put things in the book that people who didn’t grow up in the 1970s would also remember and relate to. Because of the movie, 300 was a major pop cultural moment. It made such an impression that I thought it was worth mentioning here. I didn’t want to suggest that the concerns raised in this book apply only to, say, white men who collected comics and who are now in their 50s, but rather to suggest that these concerns apply to most everybody. Although it was easy to choose superheroes, I tried to find other ways of integrating Trump.

The cover based on an issue of Adventure Time no. 5 really torments those Adventure Time characters. On the original cover, they’re not crying. In your version, it looks as though you’ve caught them on the most miserable day they’ve ever had.

It would have been harder to do these if I had really adhered to the rules that I had first thought of when I started. But changing their expressions seemed like a minor thing.

Some of the covers resonate more strongly than others. The defeat of Superman resonates in a particular way, and here I’m thinking about the 1971 Justice League cover, the one based on the original by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano. Turning Superman into “Supersad” was an inspired take, but there’s a way in which destroying Superman is part of the fantasy that our political rhetoric plays into. It’s a horrible thing to watch, when Superman goes limp like that. Another Superman cover later that struck me similarly was the one for “World’s Failest,” based on a cover for World’s Finest on which Superman looks distraught and helpless.

That is his original pose. I didn’t have to change that one. Trump speaks a lot about good and evil and about what’s right and what’s traditional, and about what represents “our country.” The terms wouldn’t be out of place in some of the older DC comic books. But then, you see him in opposition to these characters, and I think it’s evident that he’s coming from a different place. His perspective is not the same perspective that Batman or Superman had on those issues. The gamut is pretty wide here, but the more traditional superheroes tend to resonate a lot — they’re bigger than we are.

The mediation in this project works on a number of different levels. Our collective memories are being overrun, but this is exactly what a lot of political rhetoric aspires to. Comparisons with the Red Skull plug into our worst fantasies.

There was an early Fantastic Four villain called the “Hate-Monger,” who first appeared in 1963 and was driving people crazy by instilling hate in everyone, but the cover featuring him wasn’t iconic enough. It didn’t lend itself to a specific quote, but it seemed very on the nose. Some things are built into these characters.

And a lot of what was shocking during the campaign has become normalized.

Occasionally I get feedback from someone who doesn’t know why I’m being so mean about Trump, and there are some people who don’t see him as speaking out against anyone who doesn’t have it coming. But any good villain in a movie or a comic book has a very good reason for doing what they are doing. Even Doctor Doom thinks he’s doing the right thing, so it’s really hard to know how to unpack all of this.

It’s fascinating to me how your work has so many different historical layers, which distinguishes it from a lot of similar projects. I was thinking, for example, about Alan Moore’s Supreme, which I enjoy, but in those he is mediating comics through comics. He takes the history of the traditional superhero — whether it’s Superman or Captain Marvel — and filters it through a contemporary comic book lens. That’s an interesting exercise, but what you’re doing adds an additional dimension. The Unquotable Trump works from the collective memory of our youths, as does Masterpiece Comics, in which you are mediating literature, and really history itself, through comics. That produces a kind of triangulation: the Genesis story in the Bible as seen through the figures of Blondie and Dagwood, for example, and our reception of Blondie and Dagwood entering into it as a third element. I have to ask myself, when I read Blondie, why am I still looking at this fantasy from …

… the 1930s.

Right, it’s Chic Young’s idea about what domesticity is meant to be like. Filtering the Bible through that is a fascinating exercise. As you move through literary history and the comics, how do you pair these things?

The first book I adapted was Dante’s Inferno. I think I was playing more with form than with the characterization when I combined it with Bazooka Joe bubble gum comics. I was taking the loftiest, most seriously reverential epic poem and combining it with the most disposable comic there is. But then the next one I did was “Good ol’ Gregor Brown,” and that was where I thought that there seemed to be an analogy between the personalities of Charlie Brown and Gregor Samsa. When I started putting all of it together, the parallels really came into focus. I put Kafka’s dialogue into the mouth of the Charlie Brown bug, and I saw that there was no space between these characters. I didn’t have to fudge the dialogue to make it fit Charlie Brown, other than to add a “Good Grief!” Kafka was speaking for Schulz, or vice versa, and that was really exciting. Beyond that, I felt like I was paying more and more attention to how the characters related to the stories or even maybe how the genres related.

Making Wuthering Heights into a 1950s horror comic was hardly a stretch, and I don’t know if it was enough of a stretch to get the kind of jolt that I am usually looking for. But the way that novel is generally treated and thought of is much milder than the novel actually is, so I had to think of a really brutal comic to combine the novel with. I think about how things might connect and I make notes. Sometimes nothing comes of them, but sometimes something really seems like the right idea and I pursue it. What’s fun about doing these, and what has become important sometimes, is thinking about how the stories are told. I’m currently working on a sequel to Masterpiece Comics, and one of the new stories appeared in the Graphic Canon of Children’s Literature (2014). It’s a version of Tom Sawyer in the style of one of these Family Circus maps, and it actually tells the whole story as he moves through the neighborhood, to the island, to the courthouse and then to the cave. In that case I was playing with the wholesome kids of Family Circus set against Mark Twain’s more shaded views of youth. I had been asking myself, “How can I take this structure and use it to tell the story?” So, it happens in different ways. People have suggested ideas to me for other strips, and I could see how they would work. If they don’t resonate with me I won’t do them, but it all seems valid to me, and there are many ways to approach it.

It almost gets lost that you’re also offering a literary reading of a text, whether it’s of Marlowe or Brontë or any other author. It shouldn’t go unremarked that you’re a good close reader of literature. When it comes to “Inferno Joe,” I notice that you only picked Inferno. There’s no Purgatorio or Paradiso. There’s only “Inferno Joe.”

That strip was done for Raw Magazine in 1989. I only had one page, and at that point I’d only read Inferno. I thought about going back to finish the trilogy. I like closure and I considered it, but they don’t even make Bazooka Joe comics anymore. They changed the format, which is heartbreaking to me for a couple of reasons. I don’t know if that would resonate, but I considered following Joe through the other realms. It was more a question of space. Inferno is a satisfying read on its own, and many people don’t read the other two.

Raw’s aesthetics may also have helped determine that there would be only Inferno. But in any case the journey to Hell brings out something about the strange world that these figures inhabit: Bazooka Joe himself has an eye patch, which is a difficult fate for a teenager — however that might have happened — and his friend, Mort, has this oddly placed turtleneck, which turns him into Joe’s mouthless guide through Hell.

Looking at “Blond Eve,” your take on the Genesis story — your decision to turn Mr. Dithers into God was inspired. This meddling boss is walking around ruining everything for Blondie and Dagwood’s Adam and Eve. They seemed to have it good, and then their exile becomes the world of Chic Young’s comic. You’ve given us an origin story. This could be the very first Blondie. It tells us how they got into that house in the first place. They were exiled from Heaven, and now nothing remains but our cruel laughter over their fates.

Sometimes when I do these strips I end up killing the characters. Batman only goes to jail in “Dostoyevsky Comics.” But the Blondie one was striking. I was thinking it through, and I thought, “Oh, that’s were they would end up.” It’s not the end, but the beginning.

I noticed that you drew a sendup of The Lockhorns in which Mr. Lockhorn is explaining the stakes of the Vietnam War to Mrs. Lockhorn. His particular kind of sadistic masculinity is what anyone who enjoys The Lockhorns finds funny. He’s saying to her, “If Vietnam falls, all of Asia goes red, you stupid cow.” The Lockhorns first appeared in 1968, and repositioning him in this way, within that historical moment, is right on the money.

That was a drawing I did for The Daily Show. It was a commissioned illustration for them, and I think it was in response to the Muhammad cartoons in the Danish newspaper. It was written by The Daily Show’s staff, some of whom are big comics fans. They were excited that they could get a Lockhorns reference on the show.

You also made me aware of “Apocalypse Pooh.”

I came across that around 1990 when I was working at Raw. It was on VHS, and I’m not sure how it was edited, but it’s well done. It was great working at Raw, and a lot of good stuff just came over the transom. I was lucky to be there, for a number of reasons. It’s amazing to me that I had that opportunity.

Lately I’ve embraced digital comics, in part because I don’t have room for real comics anymore. It’s partially a question of space, and it’s partially about access. I did a Wonder Woman parody a couple of years ago — a retelling of the Marquis de Sade’s Justine as 1940s Wonder Woman covers, which was reprinted in Best American Comics 2015. In order to do this, I tried to look at all the 1940s Wonder Woman covers. Thankfully, those have been scanned, so you can track that stuff down. I don’t know if all of it has been reprinted. I like seeing the original colors, and a lot of the reprints take liberties. It’s really helpful in terms of research to be able to work that way, to work digitally.

Are there artists whose work you wouldn’t remediate? As I read Masterpiece Comics, I asked myself, “Where’s Hergé?” But then, of course, on your website I see that you indeed remediated Tintin in 2001. Would you ever say, “That’s something I wouldn’t tackle”? Where do you draw your lines?

That’s a complicated question. Part of the reason I did the Terms and Conditions book was to address comics I hadn’t gotten to in other ways. When I began the Masterpiece Comics project, I hadn’t thought about international comics, and part of the joke about Masterpiece Comics was that these were American comics steamrolling great works of world literature. I know Tintin pretty well, but I know American comics better. I just don’t know some great European or Asian comics in the same way. Part of it is being comfortable enough and confident enough with the source material to be able to do a good parody of it. The Tintin piece was written and drawn for Wired magazine. They came to me with the assignment to do a strip featuring Tintin going to Mars, and they gave me all the research about what might go wrong. The idea was that I was supposed to catalog it, which is kind of like what Hergé would have done. He would have tried to get the science right. I only had a page, so I didn’t have to work too hard, but I tried to be faithful to Hergé’s approach.

The Terms and Conditions book was a way to touch on cartoonists from different countries as a way of showing that I was paying attention. For Masterpiece Comics, it makes sense conceptually that it’s all American comics. I need some constraints, because otherwise I’d probably go insane. The Japanese manga artist Osamu Tezuka, by the way, did a version of Crime and Punishment with a little boy who looks sort of like Astro Boy, but it’s a fairly straightforward retelling of Crime and Punishment. Other countries’ approach to comics and literature is different from mine, or at least from what I grew up with, so it might make more sense for me to stick with American sources, because I’m responding to that heritage specifically.

That’s a level of mediation I hadn’t thought about. Masterpiece Comics is primarily European literature seen through a 20th-century American lens. In another interview you mentioned a Russian reader of Crime and Punishment who was irritated by your take on the story.

I was sort of amused by that. I don’t like it when people go away angry, but I am a trickster on some level, so I understand why I upset people. When I started the project I thought I was goofing on bad adaptations in comics and I also thought I was goofing on the high and low culture divide. But neither of those things exist the same way anymore. Many librarians have embraced comics wholeheartedly, and many teachers have said to me, “I show your comic to my high school students.” I wonder whether they really want to show them my Batman version before they actually read Crime and Punishment. It’s likely to color their reading of the novel, even though I do try to take the literary sources sincerely.

I’d be interested in your relationship to the word “adaptation.” There’s nothing more disappointing than when you open a graphic adaptation — a graphic novel based on a novel — and it’s really nothing more than an adaptation. Do you use that word to describe what you’re doing?

I like the word adaptation, but I sometimes call what I do “translation.” I’m being a little facetious with both of those terms. I try to remain faithful to the source text, and I try to remain faithful to the comic source, but the point is that they don’t really belong together. So the humor, or the disjunction, comes from that fact. Sometimes I get frustrated with adaptations that take too many liberties, but if they’re too faithful, they just die. It’s hard to find a balance, and I think I’ve tried to find a way around that by sticking to the plot. It may feature Little Lulu, as in my “Little Pearl,” or someone else that doesn’t belong there, but the plot remains that of the book being adapted. If you want to follow a plot line, my work might be more accurate than some of the Classics Illustrated, which I was also making fun of. Those present themselves as sturdy texts and wholesome for children, but they’re pretty boring.

There’s a lack of fun in those.

They might have been useful for writing a book report, and so many people have said that about them. I don’t think I would have taken the time with them as a kid, even if I had seen more of them. They were out of business by 1971, and I never paid much attention to them. They were really turgid, and they became more earnest as they went along. The earlier versions in the 1940s at least had some manic energy from the artists trying to finish in time for the deadline. By the later ones, they just seemed really stately and, yes, really square.

¤

Brad Prager is professor of Film Studies and German Studies at the University of Missouri. He is the author of After the Fact: The Holocaust in Twenty-First Century Documentary Film and serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of New German Critique.

The post Acts of Re-covery: Mining Our Comic Subconscious appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://ift.tt/2Cdp8iD

[dessarious]

Misconceptions, Miscommunication, and Misinformation Pt63

Inspired by @ozmav Maribat AU

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When Drake rolled his eyes it took all of Damian’s self control to not either attack him or go get the Horse Miraculous and shove him into outer space. He was saved from committing murder as Ladybug came in through the window. Drake’s shocked face was incredibly satisfying as Ladybug walked to stand shoulder to shoulder with him. The sheer disdain on her face as she looked at the caffeine addict brought a smirk to his face.

“You told her who you were? That’s something we need to know Damian.” The chiding tone, as if he was talking to a spoiled child, just made Damian want to hit him again.

“She figured it out on her own. I don’t see how it’s necessary information for any of you since you’re not supposed to be here. Not to mention you all refuse to give me information I need to know to do my job so why should I do you the courtesy of keeping you informed?” He could practically feel Ladybug vibrating with the need to scold him for being rude but she kept it in as a show of solidarity. He appreciated that more than he could express.

“We do not withhold information that you need Damian.” Even Ladybug narrowed her eyes at Drake’s tone.

“So I’m just imagining the time you all neglected to tell me there was a mass break out and I walked into a meeting between Scarecrow and the Penguin. Or there was the time you were all running a sting with Catwoman and rather than telling me you switched to a different comm frequency so I wouldn’t get in your way, so when I needed backup to deal with the Riddler I couldn’t contact any of you. There was also the time-”

“That’s enough Damian. This is a subject that should be discussed in private.” Damian just gave a derisive snort. What he meant was it was something to be discussed when he had backup. They were all hypocrites.

“Then that discussion won’t be happening for a while.” Ladybug’s voice was firm and Drake actually looked taken aback. He’d seen her take on the Justice League, this really shouldn’t surprise him. “Damian is an integral part of my team and I won’t leave him alone with you since it seems likely that one or both of you will be Akumatized if you remain in the same space. You have a choice. Either accept our terms for staying or I’ll send you back to where you came from.” The finality in her tone caused Drake to pause.

“Damian is a minor, he can’t just stay here on his own.” It was obvious Drake was trying not to be patronizing and failing miserably.

“I know of at least two families that are willing to host him. One of those being the Mayor himself.” Damian had to struggle to hide his shock. When had she arranged that? Or was she bluffing? He didn’t think she was bluffing. He could practically see Drake’s mind working, trying to find an argument. Ladybug just rolled her eyes. “Kaalki, Tikki merge.” A flash of light and her costume had a slightly brownish tint. “Voyage.”

The portal opened and she shoved Drake through before giving Damian an exaggerated bow and gesturing for him to proceed her. He rolled his eyes but couldn’t help the slight smile on his face. It vanished when he stepped through and into the Batcave. This wasn’t going to be pretty.

-----------------------------------------------

Ladybug stepped through the portal and dropped Kaalki’s transformation, immediately giving the Kwami sugar so she could leave when she wanted. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but this certainly wasn’t it.

She was in a cave, an actual cave. For some reason she’d always assumed that the Batcave was more of an honorary title. This was… not what she’d been expecting. She turned her attention to the people staring at her, most of them in pajamas except an older gentleman in a suit. Also not what she’d expected. She turned her attention to Bruce Wayne trying to channel Chloe so she didn’t pass out.

“Care to explain to me why you suddenly decided it was a good idea to go against my wishes and send another of your team to Paris?” Bruce frowned at her in confusion before turning to a man that looked to be in his mid twenties.

“I thought you said you texted Damian to get this cleared.” The younger man, who was dressed in robin themed pajamas and ridiculous slippers with bats on them, pulled out his phone.

“I did, here see for yourself.” He passed the device to Mr. Wayne who read it before rolling his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“This is a draft, you never actually sent it.” The man’s eyes went wide and she would have laughed at his horrified expression if she weren’t trying to maintain a professional demeanor. Mr. Wayne turned back to address her. “I apologized for the inconvenience, but surely you understand my position. I can’t allow Damian to remain in Paris alone.” The look on Damian’s face said he was seconds from murdering someone.

“First of all, he’s not alone. Second, you let him remain in the home of our top suspect for weeks without feeling he was in danger. Third, I will not have someone who refuses to even hear, let alone consider my terms stay in Paris.” That caused everyone else to look at the one Damian had referred to as Drake.

“Damian insisted that I keep information from you, I couldn’t agree to that.” None of them seemed sure how to respond to that.

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