#roy and kori when introducing jason: this is jason isn’t he an adorable little kid?

[undertheredhood]

roy and kori: *talking passionately about dick while being in deep denial that they still have feelings for him*

jason todd (former crime lord & now annoyed little brother): i can’t believe i though you guys were ever cool

[stxleslyds]

Robin Jason, a friend and ally of the Titans.

PART 2.

Hi! Welcome to Part 2 of this post, as I said in the last one, I will be talking about Robin Jason’s moments and not reviewing the issues from a story point of view but I think I will have to give a little more context in this one because honestly I am a little lost with this particular storyline, there is too much going on and Jason isn't part of many pages so yeah, I hope this post isn't too boring or bad though.

I will link part 1 Here!

Let’s begin!

·         NTT (1884) #26-28

In my last post I talked about how Jason would be called by Donna to help the Titans save Dick and Raven from Brother Blood’s people. We start #26 with Mother Mayhem giving a public speech on television. What you have to get from this is that this cult is using the image of the two Titans/Heroes (Nightwing and Raven) that they captured as propaganda for their intentions, their intentions being resurrecting Brother Blood and making the world believe that they are good people. Obviously, Dick and Raven are not there because they are supportive of their cause, they were both brainwashed.

In this issue the Titans team that had fallen apart in issue #19 is back, so we find Donna, Beast boy, Cyborg, Joey and Wally together once more and they are trying to figure out what to do because they have two problems, on one hand Beast Boy’s father is killing people and captured Garth and on the other a whole ass cult is doing cult-y shit and captured Dick and Raven. In the end they choose to go save Dick and Raven first but they do it because Beast Boy says this “I…don’t know. I can’t say what we should do. We need Dick here…he’s a tactician. We need him as out leader”. Never in my life would I have thought that I would agree with beast boy but yeah…hard agree.

Donna understands that even though the team is (mostly) back on its feet they still need more firepower and that’s why she calls Jason. While it was kinda rude of Cyborg to say that Jason is not all that (in terms of firepower) any kind of tension is quicky gone because Starfire comes back (talk about firepower).

We have various moments of Beast Boy being a perv towards Kory (thanks a lot Marv) but that’s not important, what’s important is that now the Titans have to tell Kory that Dick has been captured and they are on their way to save him.

They all leave to Zandia (where Brother Blood’s Church is located) and a fight ensues as soon as they arrive, they fight but their goal is to get to the Church as fast as possible. Jason doesn’t say anything in these panels but he is fighting alongside the others. When things get a bit more complicated Jason starts to feel that maybe he isn’t that capable of handling himself but he doesn’t have to do anything by himself because this time he has a team that can back him up. Kory gives him a lift as soon as Jason is surrounded, he is of course thankful and a little bit pervy (thanks a lot Marv).

Kory is shot just after she gets him out of trouble and Jason as the adorable kid that he is becomes worried for her well-being. After Beast Boy is also injured in the fight the Titans decide to leave back to camp. Thankfully both Kory and BB are okay but they are all still worried about how they will get to the Church. We see here once more Donna being a bit overwhelmed with leading the Titans and beating herself up over what happened in Switzerland (#20 and #21) but Jason reassures her instantly that she did a good job and she doesn’t need to be so hard on herself.

This interaction here is particularly nice because Jason reassures Donna without her asking for it. In my last post Donna looked for reassurance in Robin several times but she didn’t do it because she actually wanted Jason to give his thoughts, she did it because she was hoping Jason would act like Dick and eventually take over the team’s leadership. Here that isn’t the case, Jason just tells her what he thinks.

After Donna talks about her doubts Kory says that she is impatient and worried about Dick but also expresses being unsure because the last time that she saw Dick they kinda left things off on “bad terms”. I say this because just like it happened with Jason and Roy, Jason and Kory also have differences, she is a grown and experienced woman that is going through adult problems and Jason is a kid that is just happy that he was called to join them on another adventure.

If we back a few panels to when Jason said that Kory “was a sight for sore eyes” Kory responds saying “first Changeling, now you. It’s got to be puberty”, she is obviously not pleased about Jason making that comment about her and it’s also made clear that he is just a teenager.

This is where I rant about how different what we see here is from what we get later in New 52. Just like Roy (in New 52) Kory is also seemingly very close or the same age as Jason and she is the one that is written as wanting to take Jason to bed or, at the very least, attracted to him. Kory being an adult in comparison with Jason is taken away from her and she is just transformed into something to fit Jason’s new beginning as the Red Hood. Lobdell didn’t do Kory any favours, he annihilated her character and made her out to be just eye candy that can come off as stupid and way too reckless just to prop Jason up, believe it or not Jason sometimes was the voice of reason to both Roy and Kory’s antics.

It’s even worse when you consider the fact that in this issue Kory is feeling better and more confident because she finally understands what she wants and has accepted Earth as her real home, all of that is gone in New 52, Kory is lost, insecure, she even depends on Jason a bit too much at the start (because she “didn’t remember” her time on earth or Dick) and goes back to killing. All in all, Lobdell’s version of Kory was very damaging and a disservice to her past history.

Back to the issue, as Donna and the others are going to start coming up with a plan (with only two days until resurrection day) we move scenes and find ourselves in a meeting where people are complaining about the Titans messing up their plans, but that is not what matters, apparently the people in that meeting wanted to “summon the Brotherhood” and here is where we are introduced to the person who will make the Titans’ lives a little more complicated…Twister. She is one of the people that were victims to Brother Blood’s brainwashing and experiments.

In the next page we see the Titans resting but Cyborg is awake so thanks to that he hears someone coming straight to them, here Kory takes the lead and she says once more that she will not kill whoever that is, that she can’t and won’t do that anymore…I wonder if Lobdell ever read these issues, maybe not.

The attacker was Twister and in seconds she twists the Titans’ reality and leaves them all incapacitated. She then goes to look for and recruit the Brotherhood of Evil. While she did that though the Titans slowly made their way back to the city and are now getting ready to attack. Donnas plans as we soon find out don’t include Jason as one of their front line fighters, in fact he has to be left behind as back up.

Jason is not very happy about this; he is the boy wonder! But because it’s the plan and the Titans are experienced, he decided to stay put (at least for now). Its funny to me that even Beast Boy calls Jason a kid. What is sad from these panels is obviously the last thing that Jason says “I can’t wait until I am sixteen!”. I mean, this issue came out exactly two years before Jason’s death, there was no way they could have seen that coming but yeah, it’s just sad. Jason really was in a better and happier place around this time, little did he know everything would turn upside down after a while.  

The rest of the Titans fight, Donna starts to feel like she is finally in control and that she is doing a great job at keeping the Titans together, Kory is having her inner turmoil about Dick but she is doing her job and when she decides to go help Cyborg and Joey they come across the Brotherhood of Evil. This is where #26 ends.

Issue #27 starts with a very difficult fight for Kory, Cyborg and Joey, it ends with Kory injured, Joey captured and with Cyborg thrown off a window. The only one of them that Donna, Beast Boy and Jason are able to save is Kory.

The Titans that re left have to retreat and find a place to recover, Jason is very silent all the time but Donna and Kory are the ones that are having interesting talks, they have to find out where the Brotherhood has Joey and Cyborg and their time to save Dick and Raven is running out but if they don’t save the others they might die. It’s a complicated situation and they are both impatient but Donna tells Kory this “Dick would be the first to tell you to plan first, attack later”, I bring this up because nowadays its very common for fanon and current writers to think of Dick as someone that doesn’t plan, that doesn’t think before jumping. Even Beast boy called him a tactician, I know this is a Jason post but its also a post about how characterizations are also kinda destroyed. Dick has suffered a lot from mischaracterization so its nice to go back to these stories and see that what we think Dick should be now isn’t something that we once imagined but something that mas modified or taken away from him either by fanon or current writers.

After the Titans decide to wait for the storm to pass to go looking for Joey and Cyborg, we actually see that Cyborg is in the city looking for shelter, he is injured and as he falls unconscious we meet a couple that decides to save him. Back to the Titans once more we have Jason say that the storm that is forming look “like something out of Ghostbusters” its then that the Brotherhood makes itself known, they are taunting them and they have roped Joey to the top of the capitol building and they are asking the Titans to surrender or Joey dies.

Its here where Donna takes full control of the Titans and even though she and Kory have different ideas of what to do she says that she is the leader now and what she says gets done. Donna will be in charge of saving Joey while the others will make their way towards the Brother Blood Church to help Dick and Raven.

Before they go their separate ways Jason says this about Donna “Wow! I wouldn’t wanna be in her shoes for all the garbage pail kid stickers in the world.” I am going to be honest, I had to look those stickers up and all I have to say is what the hell. But I am not here to talk about stickers I am here to talk about how funny its that Jason is being so uninterested about leading a team. Now, don’t get me wrong, Jason has the ability to lead, yes, but he is better at leading himself or an operation, we have all read UtRH, we know how well the Red Hood can handle himself and his plans but a team of heroes? Controversial opinion but I think that Jason should have never been given a team and I am talking about Kory and Roy as well as Artemis and Bizarro. Was Rebirth better than New 52? Absolutely. But I just don’t see Jason as a leader of a team of heroes and it’s also incredibly repetitive, just because he was Robin doesn’t mean that he needs his own team. I know that Robin Jason and Red Hood Jason aren’t the same person and that they might think differently but if Lobdell had never come into Red Hood/Jason Todd’s life when he did we might have never seen Jason lead his own team and that to me is proof enough that it should have never happened. I quite enjoyed the Prince of Gotham storyline in Red Hood: Outlaw, he didn’t have a team but he had an operation going on and people working FOR him not WITH him. In my opinion that’s better for Jason (if you would like to see me review that storyline let me know).

There is a lot happening story wise and I am finding it more and more difficult to continue talking about Jason’s moments here without giving context so I am going to resume what happened between Donna leaving to save Joey and Jason’s next appearance in this issue. Here we go, Brain tells Monsieur Mallah that he decided to “help” Twister take down the Titans because he wants to use Brother Blood’s Blood Pool because he is dying, Twister goes back to her family’s home and we get to see how brainwashed she is, her family is shocked to see her and they are also the ones that took care of Cyborg while he was unconscious, Cyborg leaves to find the Titans but Twister sees where he left to, she tells the Brotherhood where he might have gone to but protects her family by not telling them that they were the ones that protected Cyborg in the first place and Donna was able to save Joey. I think that was everything.

We see Jason again when he is just outside Brother Blood’s Church with Kory (who is giving him a lift) and Beast Boy. But because life can’t be easy for them the Brotherhood of Evil teleports there and a fight ensues. Kory takes the lead and Jason gets to work.

Kory praises Jason for his work here not because she can’t do anything but because she is seeing that a kid is doing an excellent job. Make no mistake, she is the one with experience but she is nice and gives credit when its due.

Cyborg arrives and the fight continues. We see Beast Boy warning Jason about some of the villains’ powers and Jason being the excellent Robin that he is pays attention and escapes Plasmus’ touch.

I might not think that Red Hood is a team player but Robin Jason absolutely is, and the Titans are nice and care for his safety.

While all of this was happening, Cyborg had made his way to the Church and there he gathers all kinds of information including the location of Brother Bloods main Church in the US. He also makes the alarms sound so everyone leaves because he set up the Church to blow up. Somewhere else Monsieur Mallah is threatening to kill Brain after the later insults him again. And there is where this issue ends.

In issue #28 Jason and the rest of the Titans appear after several pages of Mother Mayhem being a creep, Azrael the angel rising and trying to resurrect Brother Blood through the power of prayers, people watching the live broadcasting of the event and Dick trying to break free from his own head but as soon as he does it Mother Mayhem brainwashes him right away.

The Titans are back in their tower where we see Wally again but that is not all, Frances Kane and Robotman come in too. After all the people who are willing to fight get together the Titans make their way to Brother Bloods Church.

It’s in the jet with Wally that we see Jason and this time he gets to talk too! Jason is talking about how much braver the Titans are compared to him but Wally calms him down by saying that even though he has been doing this for a while he is also scared.

The fact that Jason joined the Titans on another adventure without mentioning it to Bruce is funny to me, he was probably so happy that Donna called him again! Maybe Jason was more bored of being with the Bat than he let on and maybe he didn’t feel appreciated enough or heard. I also like to think that Donna got Jason’s number through Dick, like do you remember that Dick gave Jason his number if he ever wanted to talk shit about the Bat with him? What if they did talk and then Dick put Jason’s number on the Titans’ data base? That would be cool and really sweet!

Jason continues to be a team player and being useful during the fights, he has the Titans’ back as much as the Titans have his.

They fight their way in Brother Blood’s Church and once there they find a dude called the Confessor with Arella (Raven’s mother) but he tells the Titans that she is dead. Somewhere else though is where the real trouble is at, between Azrael and Raven, Brother Blood has finally been resurrected. 

It’s in the last page where Brother Blood is looking all mighty and powerful that Dick seems to have broken free from his brainwashing once more.

 That’s the end of that issue and this part of the post. This one was super difficult to write and it’s even longer than part one, I hope I didn’t make it super difficult to read. At some points I felt like I was explaining too much and in others too little. I guess it’s very difficult to show how one character participates in a story without giving context but I just didn’t want this post to be too plot heavy.

These issues had some cool Jason moments but the ones in issues #29 to #31 are even better!

[musicfeedsmysoul12]

Second Chance

Somewhat inspired by @unmaskedagain and her stories. Or well the pairing came from it. 

If you like my stuff, maybe support me on Ko-Fi?

 After it’s all over, after Hawkmoth is dead, Marinette breaks down screaming. She screams and rages. Not just for the fact she finally can- she can finally break without worry- but also for her partner. Chat Noir lays on the ground… Adrien lays on the ground with a sword through his gut and her frantically trying to heal him while Hawkmoth- Gabriel whatever- stares in horror.

 “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Hawkmoth screams as he’s led away by police, as Paramedics try and heal Adrien. “It wasn’t…”

 It was.

 Adrien was pronounced dead five minutes after Hawkmoth was removed from the scene. And Ladybug left the scene. She left the scene and then as Marinette accepted an internship she’d been offered years ago, vanishing to New York while Lila sprouted claims of having helped lead Ladybug and Chat to Hawkmoth, of her fake sobs about being forced to go along with Gabriel’s plots. 

 Who’d believe the terrorist over a pretty Italian girl?

 Marinette vanished into America and never resurfaced. She didn’t care that Lila was lying. She’d gotten over that years ago thanks to Adrien finally realizing how bad her lies were and trying to help. She didn’t care that her class was still following Lila. She didn’t care her parents barely realized she was gone- treating her like an adult for most of her life helped with that. All she cared about was her shattered heart. 

 Luka and Kagami kept in contact. Chloe she saw when the blonde visited her mother. Everything else was gone.

 She was broken. After all, Ladybug and Black Cat holders were two parts of the same whole. They were yin and yang. And she’d lost her Cat. She was broken in a way only another Black Cat could heal. But she couldn’t let herself find one. 

 She was lost. 

 And then she ran into a redhead who was carrying a little girl and talking on the phone.

-0-

 “Yeah, I’ll be there. Just got to figure out who can watch Lian for about a week. Or more depending on how long this… stuff will take.” Roy Harper says into the phone while Lian whines about being bored. Jason snorts over the phone.

 “You have her with you? Trying to keep her vocabulary clean still?” Jason taunts his friend and Roy laughs. 

 “Oh bite me,” Roy tells him just as a young woman nearly runs into him, the woman busy talking into her own phone. “Whoa! Watch it!” The woman jerks.

 “Oh, Kwami- I’m so sorry.” She does look sorry. “I wasn’t- no Luka I’m talking- look can I call you back? Thanks.” She hangs up her phone as Roy hangs up his after a similar conversation with Jason. “Marinette. I’m sorry for nearly running into you.”

 “Roy. And I’m more worried about what would have happened to my kid.” Lian is hiding her face in his shoulder. Good girl for being wary of strangers. Marinette looks even more apologetic.

 “There’s a cafe near here with cute cookies that look like animals if you’ll let me make it up to you?” And well cookies and animals are Liam’s weakness. Or maybe they’re every seven-year-old’s weakness. Lian eagerly accepts the offering and Roy laughs while Marinette leads them to the cafe. 

 It’s fun and light and soon they’re trading numbers to keep in touch. Roy has his mission with the Outlaws but he finds himself texting Marinette often. Lian when he calls her- staying with Tim Drake for a few weeks- wants to see the pretty lady again. And Roy… wouldn’t mind it. 

 They meet up when Roy’s back in New York and Marinette isn’t running around dealing with a fashion show. They meet up at a park to play with Lian and get ice cream, Marinette telling the story of how there is a magic ice-cream seller in Paris who can give you ice cream based on the person you’re in love with and well Roy has heard weirder things. Sounds like this guy isn’t trying to take over the world. Not like that Hawkmoth guy who the Justice League only realized was real when he got arrested. That had Green Lantern looking stupid while Wonder Woman ripped him a new one. 

 Marinette tells stories about Ladybug and her team to Lian who loves them and adores hearing about any hero. Luckily she doesn’t mention Roy and his skills. It’s safe and wonderful and he loves it.

-0-

 Roy and Lian are bright lights in a long sea of pain for Marinette. She loves spending time with them, laughing and playing games together. She loves going to the park with Lian or going to a movie with Roy. 

 Roy winces when she mentions alcohol and so she avoids it- not enjoying drinking anyway- and focuses on other things like movies or museums or even some science expo Roy was thrilled about. 

 Max was there to and he’d seen her. He came up to her to speak and apologize for never believing her as a kid about Lila. Apparently, she was lying about dating him now as she tried to catch some fame Max had concerning his AI and robotics research. They hug and Marinette… she’s better then she was before. She’s still broken and pained but she feels human enough to say it’s okay and she forgives him now. Roy gets a bit of a rundown of how Marinette was treated in college and lycee, and also it brings up her parents and their expectations and treatment of her.

 She keeps in contact with them, but they stopped being parents long ago. They started treating her like an adult at ten and she never really looked back.

 Roy’s quiet for a few minutes after hearing this before he rolls up his sleeves to show track marks and begins his tale of being adopted by a billionaire from a Navajo reserve. He speaks of loving his adoptive father but being thrown out by him upon becoming addicted to drugs and struggling to get clean only to fall into alcoholism. How his friends helped him get clean, but Lian was what had him stay clean. 

 “I know a thing about bad parents.” He finishes and Marinette hugs him tight. It’s not the same but they both carry trauma from their parents. 

 They aren’t dating but something about Roy makes her feel alive again.

-0-

 Roy introduces Marinette to Kori and Jason when they’re in New York for Lian’s birthday. Marinette came to the party with handmade dolls of the Heroes of Paris. Lian adores them and happily plays with them while Marinette gets along famously with Kori and finds that she can tease Jason well enough. 

 She’s sunshine and adorable and Roy can’t remember the last time he laughed so much or smiled so bright. Jason and Kori sure notice and drill him about his relationship with the girl. There isn’t really one outside of friendship but both know they find each other attractive. There’s just something stopping them. For Roy it’s Lian and Jade and Oliver and his addiction. It’s being Arsenal and being part of the Outlaws. 

 For Marinette… well he doesn’t know but she hides her own scars. They’re just not ready yet, and his friends accept it. They still tease though.

-0-

 “He’s the next Black Cat isn’t he?” Marinette asks Tikki late at night. The Kwami nods.

 “He is. You need a Cat Marinette, you couldn’t keep going without one without going insane.” Marinette has come a long way since she was a teenager. She misses Adrien, misses her kitty but she’s no fool. Soulmates are a thing but many people can be soulmates. Souls come in many. 

 She just wishes it didn’t hurt so much knowing this.

 She has no idea how to tell Roy. She has no idea how to explain it all to him. She doesn’t know how to tell him she’s the Guardian for a box that holds what amount to magical nukes. She just doesn’t.

 She thinks she’s lucky when aliens attack and Roy suits up in front of her, apologizing for lying, saying he’s sorry. 

 She kisses him and it’s their first kiss and means so much. She grins at him and transforms.

 “Roy Harper.” She says to him, pulling out a silver ring. “This is the Miraculous of the Black Cat, the Kwami of Destruction inside. Every Ladybug needs a Black Cat with her. I fell for you without knowing you’re a possibility. But you are. Will you take this responsibility… and be with me?”

 “...Hell yeah.”

-0-

 It’s not perfect. Roy and Marinette know they need to speak more, that more stories need to be told, and more pain needs to be uncovered. But as Roy and Marinette power up and fight, all they can think is that they got their second chance.