#quick thoughts as always! take em with a grain of salt since im trying to get thru these random stories p fast

[dyketectivecomics]

With Cry of the Huntress wrapped up, I’m gonna be taking a good long break from this read to switch over to the Brubaker/Cooke Catwoman run. But before I do... Let’s do another round of Thoughts™

(usual tw for canon typical violence mentioned)

Renee

a Return of Scarface features her Debut, and!! Underwhelming start for her character tbh, but these things tend to be that way. First intros for minor characters are usually underwhelming when they don’t know if the character will catch on

altho while i was Supposed to be reading for Renee for those early issues and I got SWEPT UP on the melodrama of Bruce/Vicki I CANT BELIEVE IT

on first glance, Renee is clearly meant to be another voice for Jim & Bullock to bounce off of. No-nonsense, one of the few “honest” cops etc etc. Too early in these issues to get a feel for her character, given that there isn’t much of one. Rucka really did see her and say “its free real estate” didn’t he fjdlaks;

Steph

So far only got to her First Time Spoiling! and i love her already fdjakls;

i mean sure i ALREADY loved her, but omigod she was so READY to kick her dad’s ass. AND BATMAN SHOULD’VE LET HER FJDKALS;F

a little sad that i’m not gonna see her again until Tim’s robin run, but that’s just the nature of the beast *sigh*

Lonnie

he showed up again!!! for the Annual!!!!

on one hand LONNIE YES bc he had SUCH good intentions, even while he was blackmailing the mayor but like can we Blame him? i think not

and on the other LONNIE NO bc he was using the eclipso diamonds to blackmail the city with which :/ lonnie honey noooooooo

anyways, i love him ur honor lmao

Helena

when we left helena, she was making it clear that she was heading to gotham with uhhh the kid from her solo... which.... okay yeah they just dropped him entirely so i guess i have to assume that he was put in the foster system like they originally planned but???? *note for future randy, actually DO something with that instead*

she puts on her costume again and starts patrolling Gotham streets and Bruce is NOT havin it (which lol)

they team up to stop a gang or w/e, thats not as important as by the end one of them has a suicide vest (usual Yikes™ here) and helena makes the split-second decision to drive him away from the crowd and barely escapes the blast herself.

batman berates her, saying he should’ve had the chance to disable it to save everyone, including the bomber, but helena stands her ground, saying that he doesn’t know FOR SURE if he WOULD have disabled it in time.

which like. CAN WE BLAME HER. as always i admire bruce and cass’ commitment to Preserving Life, but like.... sometimes a Call has to be Made, and they’ll never Make that call so fjkdlsaf.

before we get to the Overlapping story, let’s talk Tim

Tim

electric city was a good 3 parter, major thing of note was Bruce had his heart stopped and was clinically dead for a minute. Tim seemed to take that to heart

To the Father I Never Knew, tims dad has recovered and it might be the End of Tim Robin (but we know that’s not true)

To circle back to the Robin Annual, Tim and Lonnie seem to have a BIT of a rapport that could be built but well.... there’s no telling how well that goes obvsly. gonna have to wait to read more and see how things go.

lmao @ my note here for Steph’s intro “tim got absolutely DECKED by that brick... nice” fjdkasl;f

oh also “steph’s making POINTS. tim’s only got a few months more training on her at this point.... you can have TWO robins bruce...... its Okay” fjkdasflk; GALAXY BRAIN PAST RANDY. UR RIGHT.

Something thats a common theme that I made note of too, is Bruce takes a LOT of opportunities to sideline Tim. Having him hang back and do computer research and recon... I can’t tell if the writers for this era are trying to be More Aware of the Child Endangerment aspect of crimefighting now that Jason’s died, or if its just kind of a coincidence now that they’re on the precipice of the Digital Age.... its something to Make Note of though....

Now.... Cry of the Huntress:

Overall, I think Tim and Helena worked well together tbh! at least in this!

Tim’s trying so VERY hard to be Serious and Professional™, and to be fair, he’s also dealing with having to make up excuses in his personal/school life too, now that he’s coming home with more noticable bruises and scrapes.

Helena on the other hand, is still finding a lot to love abt the Thrill of being a vigilante. she’s the one cracking more jokes around tim (altho he had a few cracks here n there earlier on), also calling into question why Batman’s so against her and yet allows a Child™ to patrol on fuckin SCHOOL nights (altho to be fair for this story, bruce didn’t know tim was Out so)

there’s a lot to work with this mini, there’s a lot that’s brought up from previous ones too, but overall, following it up from the Huntress solo, i could Kinda be okay with recommending this for ppl who are doing backreading for either tim or helena.

its not like, an absolutely necessary read for their characters, but it is a fun quick romp at least... all things considered.