#tim drake? idk him and neither do the current runs

[perfectmanisperfect]

fuck the dc reading order i’m reading whatever and wherever i want. this comic from 2010 followed by that comic from 1994 followed by another from this week and another from 2016. new 52, rebirth, pre crisis, post crisis, dawn of dc. i literally have no clue what is happening.

continuity? idk her. everything i learned when reading in an order? inconsequential. none of it sticks. making my own canon ig.

(can you tell im fed up with trying to follow the comics into new 52??)

[havendance]

Anyway, my proposal for a run on Detective Comics where I write a series of one-shot stories showcasing all of the various supporting cast Batman has accumulated with stories, including, but not limited to:

Batman invites Nightwing to Gotham to help him solve a murder. The murder is very straightforward and they dance around the real reason Bruce invited him, until at the end, he finally admits in a constipated Bruce way that it's the anniversary of him adopting Dick and he wanted to spend time with him.

Huntress and Robin (Tim Drake) team up to investigate Killer Croc. It turns out he's turning over a new leaf in the sewers near the Marina. Huntress is dubious, but Robin convinces her to give him a chance, though she says she'll be watching him. We re-canonize Joker: Last Laugh.

Damian and Duke team up to take on a street-racing operation--a mission that naturally requires them to do some high adrenaline racing together.

The Riddler gets on social media with a plot that involves lots of puzzles and clues all over Gotham. Oracle taps into old members of "We are Robin" to take it down.

Batgirl (Stephanie Brown) and Batman end up on the same missing persons case. With the pressure on to find the missing child, they snipe at each other as tensions rise. In the end, after saving the kid, Bruce sort of kind of apologizes in a Bruce way and expresses some measure of respect for her.

Jason teams up with Ghostmaker to take on, idk, one of the Clayfaces. Does Gotham still have one of those? I haven't read any comics ghostmaker's in yet, but from I've heard it sounds like they'd have an interesting dynamic. Jason gets flashbacks to digging his way out of his grave.

Luke Fox recruites Harper Row (She does engineering stuff right? I also need to read comics she has a significant role in.) They take some new tech for a joyride and go bother the Penguin.

Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) and Azrael team up to take down Mad Hatter. He probably has some elaborate Alice in Wonderland theming going on that neither of them get. (I think neither of them should have read it.)

Batwoman and Catwoman team up to steal back some Kane family heirlooms, possibly from Jacob Kane (What's his and Kate's relationship looking like anyway?), possibly from someone else.

Gotham Girl and somebody. Me advancing my Cass & Claire agenda Possibly Oracle trying to rehabilitate her in that controlling yet well-intentioned way she has sometimes? Someday, I will get to being more up to date on what Claire's status quo in current comics is.

A handful of representatives from Gotham's various crime families get together in the backroom of a bar somewhere. They play poker and exchange stories of being busted by the various bat-affiliated vigilantes in which they are very scary and almost inhuman. It ends with Batgirl (Cass) busting in and beating them up.

Helena Bertinelli takes a gig as a substitute teacher at Gotham Academy. She teams up with Maps & other supporting cast when Mr Freeze takes the school hostage while trying to escape the police.

[cuephrase]

10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 25, 26, 27, and 28 for the comics ask game! (feel free to break up or just the ones you want to)

coming from this ask game

i'm going to skip 26 + 27 because when i tried to do it i realized a) certain art styles have grown on me and b) i was hard-pressed to find a comic that fit bc i don't collect books i don't enjoy, unless i'm getting it purely for the variant cover...at which point i like neither the writing nor the interior art lmao. sorry!!

10. The prettiest cover

from top to bottom, left to right Red Hood: Outlaw (2016) #27, Batman (2016) #150, Tim Drake: Robin #10, Nightwing (2016) #94

-est's are sooooo hard for me, and i'm so indecisive, and there's so many art styles...so i picked these four lmao. i have so many pretty covers okay, i tried.

this picture does not do it justice, but the red hood issue is foiled and i just love it. foil is fun in general, but i feel like it makes the blood more...bloody? wow i'm so eloquent. IT'S COOL IMO OKAY. not that this is shocking to anyone, but i am v obsessed with pink...the batman cover is pink. but also!! bruce is smiling. and the motion of the cape feels so lush. it just makes me happy. um. so. the tim cover. listen. the color palette is pretty, i love the early dawn + his bright colors. also. he's pretty. NEXT. i adore this nightwing cover. it's so soft, like it kinda looks like it was done with, crap idk my art mediums, oil pastels? the texture is so smooth. plus, i love like the scene and all the details, like it's just so satisfying.

i'm realizing i may have defined 'prettiest' strangely. oh well.

11. The ugliest cover

Teen Titans (2011) #18

ngl i probably have uglier covers but like WTF why does his face look like that. (the struggle here was that i either buy covers i like or the cover is completely irrelevant, so then i was neutral about like...pretty much every book i bought for content not cover lmao.)

12. Your favorite comic you have

Robin (1993) #10, 13, 46, 156

just for you, i did the tim drake edition version of this question hehe. hang on, lemme compose myself so i can be mostly normal about these comics. *muffled screaming* alright!!

first!! ROBIN!DICK AN ROBIN!TIM ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! with jason-haunting-the-narrative angst?! to die for. then we have tim being robin to dick's batman, so fun, with a healthy serving of bruce and dick angst and they actually communicate a bit. so frickin good. i've talked before about how much i love love love #46, and that has not changed- i revisted it recently and *oh my godddddd*. tim struggling with robin vs. tim drake, and then utterly failing despite his best efforts when he was already questioning if he even makes a difference? fuck yes. sorry. and then!! super-depressed!timbo talking a would-be jumper into not jumping and then calling dick? words cannot express the sheer !!!!!!!!!!!!!! i feel about these issues. this is me trying to be normal about them, that's how bad it is. as with the previous answer to 12, i have pages of these comics eternally memorized.

13. Your least favorite comic you have (and why you originally grabbed it!)

Red Hood: The Hill

allow me to explain my comic buying method. first of all, i try to buy only comics i've read + liked, unless i like the cover or it's a current release. so this is a little bit recency bias, but also current stuff is pretty much the only thing i'll be buying blind for the story itself.

i picked up this mini bc it was marketed as a jason run. HA. you could completely cut him from the story and like. so little would change. his only relevance was marketing. the story itself was also like, super boring to me, but in the spirit of fairness + acknowledging bias, i was enticed by a jason story and not given one. so. if i'd come to the run expecting an oc + batman i might've had a very different experience.

if this had been out on dcui, i would not have picked this run up. maybe the dan mora covers if i saw them when digging through boxes. but purely for the covers.

17. comic you picked up just for the cover art

Batman (2016) #50, Nightwing #81, Task Force Z #8, Robins #3

have not read the issue yet, bc i have not kicked off my Big Batman Read Through, but i am fairly certain it will upset me when i get to it lmao. i have a soft spot for sketch covers, i think they're so neat. plus this one is so evocative. technically, the nightwing cover may not count bc i'm sort of collecting all of nightwing, but at the time i bought it purely for the cover. the graffiti is fun, dick + tim + milkshakes = cute!! i enjoyed task force z, but not enough to buy the run, however when i saw this cover i had to get it. idk how to express it but the composition tickles my brain in the best way. ugh so cool. MARCUS TO TIM?!?!?! HELLO?! WHAT MORE NEED I SAY?!

25. The comic with the coolest variant cover

Nightwing (2016) #107, Red Hood: Outlaw #35, Batman and Robin (2023) #1, Tim Drake: Robin #2

i do not yet have the comic(s) with the coolest variant covers i want, so i decided to do a cover for each robin! dammit tim and damian are in the wrong order. dick through the ages by dan mora? amazing. just. so cool. so fun. enjoy the atmosphere on the red hood one + his reflection being in a puddle of blood, very classy. dami and bruce just look so 🥹🥹🥹. love the lighting/composition. and now is when i joke that i almost just did all the dan mora tribute covers lmao. very much love them all, but the dick and tim cover is my fave. like. it's just so sweet. the brothers. the homage. the !!!!!!!!!! of it all. gah i love them sm fr

28. A run you have completely collected (trades, singles, or mix!)

Red Robin (2009)

it has literally just occured to me that i could have also done TT's nightwing run but...eh. much prouder of this!! this is the first run/title that i decided to collect completely and it was so much fun hunting the issues down. man, i felt so accomplished when i brought #25 home. and i got it for a steal too, so like bonus happy points 💅🏼

brief story time, so i picked this up fairly early on into my comics collecting when i was really trying to be very, very selective. i think i maybe was looking specifically for #17, where bruce is back and tim gets a hug, and the vendor had that one + a bunch of others and i was geeking out a little bit showing diff panels to my spouse and they were like, "so we're getting them all, cool." "no, it's fine-" "dude. your whole face is so lit up right now." i lost (won?) that argument. it is still so mind-blowing to me how supportive they are of the things that bring me joy. completely antithetical to my upbringing. anyways!! so yeah, this is also the run that spurred me to collect the way i do today. i tried to be more restrained. i was ✨enabled✨

tysm for the ask!! i had such a blast answering, i hope you enjoy the answers!!

[ectonurites]

Am I the only one who thinks the TimSteph we’ve been getting in Rebirth honestly feels nothing like how their relationship actually was when they were together Pre-New52? A little like weird pod people

Oh 100% and its because neither of them has ever really been written the same way they used to be since the reboot

like, not to praise Bendis but I think their flashback conversation in Young Justice 2019 with the playful banter and stuff was probably the closest it felt to old timsteph in a while,

but in general they have not been the same at all

like... i genuinely do love tim/steph! but i like it when they’re stupid kids trying to face the world together who love each other so much but aren’t fantastic at communication bc they’re vigilantes with a lot of baggage, not when they’re Tim ‘jimmy neutron boy genius’ Drake and Stephanie ‘i exist to be Tim’s girlfriend’ Brown like they’ve primarily been written as the last few years

Steph breaking away from the batfam/Gotham Knights after Tim died in Detective Comics and not really rejoining until he was back bothered me a lot, because it really just cemented in the current universe she’s mainly just there for Tim rather than her own motivations which... is so in-genuine to who she is as a character. Stephanie Brown is a hero who’s motivations should have NOTHING to do with Tim, like obviously yes she loves him, but jesus christ she is her own character! she is determined as hell and refuses to give up no matter what anyone says! this girl literally SLAPPED BATMAN IN THE FACE because she didn’t want him to even TRY to take Batgirl away from her! obviously she would have mourned Tim, but the way it was handled in that comic just... was not it. I still enjoyed the run overall but I remember that annoying me a lot. I might be remembering it worse than it was but idk man

But at least with like, her and Cass working together during Joker War on their own and seemingly doing so more in the background of current Batman stuff, they’re pushing her back to more self-motivation and being who she is. but it takes time to undo years of damage to her character and having it happen in the background of other things makes it sloooow. we need that Batgirls book so bad

and then with Tim again YJ 2019 was a step back in the right direction and made him less ‘im a 16 yr old super genius >:3’ (like he was in all of New 52 and then parts of Detective Comics 2016) and more just A Clever Dude with his friends which is how he should be, and i’m hopeful for his upcoming Urban Legends story

but yeah so when the characters aren’t being written the same way its not a surprise the relationship doesn’t feel the same. it just feels hollow. fanservice-y bc people did like old tim/steph rather than doing new interesting things with their actual dynamic

feel like shit want THEM back

[queerbutstillhere]

For my favourite writer, Damian and Jon get send to an Alternate Universe (maybe young justice cause I'm more familiar with it) and during their brief stay there everyone they interact with thinks they are dating because they act as a couple.

(I'm not sure how I feel about this, but oh well? I hope it's okay! Also it's kinda a weird situation, like they're in an alternate universe, but it's also just Young Justice? Idk I hope it makes sense!)

You know, it wasn't everyday that you're chilling with your Bros, a big blue portal opens in the ceiling and from it falls two vigilantes, cursing and kicking each other, right onto your coffee table, shattering it everyday.

Or at least it shouldn't be an everyday occurrence.

It certainly wasn't that surprising to say the least.

I suppose you want background, don't you?

It was a wonderful summer morning. Timothy Drake, Conner Kent, Cassie Sandsmark and Bart Allen had gone to visit their good friends Cissie and Greta, retired heroes. Tim, being a rich kid, could afford to do this for a weekend, and of course, the others could just run or fly there. So they went out for lunch and then went back to Cissies house, her mom conveniently out for the weekend. They were just chilling and catching up when the portal opened, people fell, and glass table shattered.

Greta had screamed when they fell, meanwhile the others just jumped up, ready to fight. The two vigilantes weren't terribly large, they had landed on top of each other, and the one on top was covered by a large black cape, a hood flipped over his head. He was the one swearing loudly. The other one was clearly a teen, wearing blue and red, and a red cape twisted underneath him. He had black hair and blue eyes and looked . . . Like Clark?

Tim and Kon exchanged a confused look.

"Damn you!"

"Stop it! Would you just stop fighting and hold still while I get a bearing on where the hell we are."

"No! Let go of me!"

"You're bleeding," the teen responded, arms tightly clasped around the person on top of him.

He had spotted Kon and apparently identified him as the current threat, body going rigid.

"I'm always bleeding, let go!"

There was a grunt and then cape man was pushing up, sitting on his companions stomachs as he looked around, eyes landing on Tim.

They both gasped at the same time.

"Robin?" Tim exclaimed, because standing in front of him was an. . . Older Damian?

"Drake," Damian shot back, tilting his head.

"Whoa, wait a minute," Kon said, stepping in front of Tim. "What's going on?"

"Tim, how does he know that?" Cissie asked.

"Know what? His last name?" Robin said with an eyeroll.

"God, Robin, lay off the bean burgers!" The younger man complained, shoving at Robin.

"Shut the hell up, Superboy. Now is not the time."

A small whine escaped "Superboy" and then he locked eyes with Kon again. Sure enough, on his chest was the S emblem of Superman. Kon took a step towards him, and in a flash, this Superboy was across the room, Robin between him and the wall as he glared at them, an arm behind him, touching Robin.

"Stay back. Who the hell are you people."

"Tt. Kent, don't be so naive," Robin said, poking his head out around the taller teens shoulder. "That is clearly my brother."

"You're-" Tim started confused.

"I see that, Rob, but who are the others?"

".... Admittedly I don't know. It appears Rex's portal dropped us into another dimension. . . Fascination."

"Uh! No! The last alternate dimension we got involved in, my dad was evil! Your dad doesn't even know we snuck out."

"Eh. I'm sure it'll be fine. What's the worst that can happen? They send West after us?"

"Robin!"

Tim raised an eyebrow at the two, motioning for the others to stand down, Cassie relaxed, and Cissie stopped edging towards her bow.

"Bart, can you clean up the glass, please?" Tim asked softly.

"Yeah." The speedster blurred around until all the glass pieces were collected, and then appeared with a vaccum, sweeping the rug.

Superboy and Robin had gone silent, watching this.

"He's a speedster."

"I see that."

"I don't trust them."

"And you think I do? They haven't attacked us yet, though, so that's a start."

Tim watched with hidden amusement, this whole time, as they stood against the wall, they had been touching the whole time, Robin's hands on Superboy's arm, which was wrapped around and hooked into Robin's utility belt. It was almost as if they were holding each other back.

"Okay. Why don't we do introductions instead of standing here and whispering," Tim said, stepping closer. "I'm Tim Drake."

"Red Robin. I know," Robin said softly.

Tim frowned, eyebrow raising. "I'm not..."

Robin's eyebrow also raised.

"Maybe he's not Red in this universe?" Superboy said softly.

Robin gently cuffed the back of Superboy's head. "Use your eyes. Read his body language, his posture, his body shape. He's a vigilante of some kind. It seems only reasonable that he would be Red Robin still. His recognized me, which means I have become Robin in this universe already. So unless he quit, or by some miracle, is Batman..."

"Okay, Damian, just, stop," Tim said, waving his hands. "Yes I know who you are. But I'm not Red Robin anymore."

"Oh you did quit?" Robin inquired.

"No. . . I uh. Changed my name."

"Fucking Drake," Kon muttered from behind them.

"Okay, you know what. Greta and I are gonna go to the kitchen why you guys sort this mess out," Cissie said, and sure enough, the two girls just exited stage left-

"What did you change it to?" Robin asked, he still hadn't moved from behind Superboy.

".... Drake."

Robin blinked once. Then twice.

"What the fuck?"

"Look! Okay! It's a powerful duck-"

"It's literally only aggressive when horny, Tim, what the hell?" Robin interrupted, staring at him with the biggest "what the fuck" expression ever.

"I TOLD YOU!" Bart nearly screamed, zipping over. "Hi! I'm Bart Allen, Impulse! I'm Barry's grandkid."

"Uh, Hi. I'm Superboy?" Superboy said, blue eyes cautiously scanning Bart.

"That's hilarious, because I'm Superboy," Kon said, stepping up, wrapping an arm around Tim's waist.

The two Superboy's had a glaring match.

"Cassandra Sandsmark. Wonder Girl."

"Oh, isn't Donna-"

"Alternate dimension," Robin reminded his Superboy.

Tim didn't miss the small sway that just happened to Robin. Neither did Superboy, as he suddenly spun and scooped up Robin.

"You dumbass," he huffed, looking around.

"I'm fine. We have more pressing matters-"

"You are literally bleeding through your armor."

"Kent I'm fine."

"Like hell."

Superboy looked at Tim.

"He took a shank to the stomach earlier. Do you have medical supplies?"

"Somewhere-"

They sent Bart off to look for those, while Superboy laid Robin down on the dining room table, gently undoing all his armor as Robin was forced to lay there helplessly, and just talk.

"As you have probably figured out by now, I'm Damian Wayne, and this is Jonathan Kent. We are Robin and Superboy from our universe," Damian explained, tugging off his gloves and then his mask.

"Wait does that make us brothers?" Kon asked, staring at Jonathan.

"What?" The younger Kent asked , barely glancing up from his task of gently pulling off Damian's layers, every touch and tug painfully gentle.

"Your dad is Clark, right?"

"Yeah."

"He's mine too. I'm Kon, Conner Kent."

"Oh! Cool!" Jon grinned at him brightly.

Neither of them noticed it, but Damian went rigid, and Jon mumbled an apology, looking back down. Bart returned with a first aid kit finally.

"This is all Cissie had."

"I'll take it," Jon said.

While he got to work, ripping his cape for spare bandaged, and using the surgical needle and string that Cissie had wisely decided there should be inside, Damian began explaining what had happened, how they had been battling an old enemy named Rex, and he had, in a last ditch effort, opened the portal, tossing them through it. Cassie and Tim asked a few questions to better understand, and Damian answered them all, barely bothered by Jon working on his stab wound, bandaging it as best he could.

"So wait. We don't exist on your world?" Cassie asked.

"Well, Tim does, and I do believe I've heard of a Cassandra Sandsmark. But I've never met you, Kon, nor do we have an Impulse. Just the Wally's and Barry. Oh and Jay."

"Wild."

"Well, Jon here doesn't exist in our timeline, so it'd not that surprising," Kon said to Bart.

"Yeah but still. What do people do without us?"

"We survive just fine, I assure you," Damian said sarcastically.

Jon smacked his thigh. "Hey, play nice."

"I am playing nice."

"No. You're being a dick."

"This is him being a dick?" Tim asked, eyebrow raised. "You should meet my Damian. . . Hey how old are you anyway."

"I'm seventeen. Jon is fifteen."

Tim exchanged a look with Kon, right as Damian gave a small grunt.

"Sorry, I'm almost done, okay? Hold still," Jon said, lightly touching Damian's arm before tying off the string.

They almost acted like a couple, with the gentle touches and soft tones they used.

"That's cute," Bart said softly, almost as if he had read Tim's mind.

Jon's head snapped up, and he looked at Bart, cheeks turning red.

"So we should most likely talk to Father, and maybe Kord to see how to get us back," Damian said to Tim.

"Yeah. I'll call Bruce. I think he's in Paris though so he may not be much help."

"He'd still like to know what is going on."

Tim shook his head slightly. "Don't you two worry, we'll get you boys back to your own universe as quick as possible."

"We're not children, Drake," Damian muttered, shaking his head. "God I can't believe you picked Drake!"

So they called Bruce, headed to the watchtower, changing on the way. When Tim walked out from the room on the batwing that he had been changing in, Damian just stared at him.

"Why are you brown and yellow."

"It's my uniform."

"That is the blandest uniform I have ever seen. That's not even the colors of a Drake."

"What?" Tim asked confused."

"You're literally wearing the colors of a female duck," Damian explained.

"Dami! Don't be rude!"

"It's cause he's such a bottom," Kon commented, grinning at Tim.

"Okay, gross," Damian said, making a face.

"What? Is that not gay culture on your universe?"

"I wouldn't know, frankly," Damian said with a sigh, looking down at his touchscreen gauntlet, messing with it.

". . . So you two aren't dating then?"

Both of them looked at Kon in alarm.

"What?!" Jon screeched.

"Why would we be dating?"

"Because you guys are all gross and touchy," Kon said, even as he leaned on Tim.

"We are not!" Jon protested. "He's my best friend!"

And yet, when they got to the watchtower, the two walked with their arms pressed together, murmuring softly and pointing things out to each other and in general acting like a couple. Tim may not know this Damian, but he can read closeted gay anywhere. Well except himself.

All of the Justice League was wary of these new vigilantes, but interested too, asking questions. Tiny angry Damian was not impressed with older, happier Damian, but older Damian just smiled and spoke gently to younger Damian for a moment, and then the kid huffed in annoyance and ran off.

"What did you tell him?" Jon asked softly.

"That it was okay and he would make mistakes and to just learn from them instead of beating himself up. And that I was proud of him because I remembered how hard and confusing it was to follow Bruce's rules, but things will get better."

Jon smiled fondly at Damian. "Things you wish you had been told?"

"Maybe."

"Totally not dating," Tim mumbled as he walked past. They both glared after him.

It took a few hours for them to figure out how to send Damian and Jon back, meanwhile, the two just hung out with Tim and Kon and chatted, swapping stories and finding out information about each other. Tim really couldn't believe they weren't dating. They sure acted like it.

"Okay, kiddos," everyone looked up as Barry walked over. "Time to go, we've got it all figured out."

They walked over to where the portal was supposed to open.

"Thank you, for helping," Damian said, pressing on his mask.

"It was our pleasure," Tim said with a grin.

Jon said goodbye to Kon, and then ran after Damian through the portal. Tim just laughed and shook his head, and turned to Kon.

"I liked them."

"They were most definitely dating without realizing it yet."

"Oh yeah."

Send me a prompt!