#what does matter is bruce

[hypewinter]

Danny felt a familiar tug in his chest. Not another summoning. The cultists never quit did they? Danny was going to ignore it. Just like all the rest. He figured they would try blood sacrifices but then he didn't experience the familiar tang in the air that usually wafted through his nose. That had peaked his curiosity. So he leaned into the summoning a little. Not enough to be summoned but enough to get more senses. He heard..... he heard crying! What? Why was he hearing crying? He leaned into the summoning just a little more. That allowed him to see, albeit vaguely. He caught the glimpse of a form within the circle. It was small. It was...... a child. A child? A. CHILD!? Those cultists had really thought since blood sacrifices didn't work to try a whole human. Danny's blood boiled. He had been content to ignore them until now but no more. He was taking care of this. NOW. With that, Danny allowed himself to be fully summoned. The cultists immediately fell on their knees.

"Oh great King, you have finally answered our plea," the apparent leader said.

Danny ignored him and immediately scooped the child up in his arms. He gently rubbed circles into the child's back, whom he now knew to be a boy who couldn't be older than 8. He felt his rage flair. They had tried to sacrifice an eight year old! Danny didn't even bother listening to the cultists. Instead he dispersed his power throughout the room, allowing all the souls sacrificed over the years to gain form.

"Feel free to exact your revenge," he said simply.

Then he turned and opened a portal, tuning out the screams as he stepped through.

~~~~

It took a while, but Danny finally managed to calm the boy down and convince him he didn't want to eat him. Once he did, he asked for the kid's name.

"It's Richard Grayson," the boy answered. "But my parents called me Dick."

Danny didn't miss the past tense. Were his parents dead? Danny's mouth set into a firm line. If he found out those cultists had anything to do with this- His train of thought was cut off by the sound of sniffling. Right, Dick. Danny would handle the cultists later. Right now, he had a little boy to comfort.

[frownyalfred]

tonight I am imagining the delicious delicious angst of a grieving Alfred Pennyworth trying to explain to his newly-adopted ward that he cannot abandon the Wayne last name and take on Pennyworth as his own, not because it’s legally impossible or forbidden but because of expectations, expectations which a small boy cannot truly understand but feels rejected by anyway

[heroesriseandfall]

I’m dying at Bruce giving Robin Dick good grades in his head

Dick, on the other hand, gives his feedback out loud 👍

Batman and Robin: Year One #1

[wesavegotham]

Not really caught up with current comics, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but is Damian seriously being written to be the only one dumb enough to think this is Bruce?

I know Zdarsky said he likes Damian, but his writing doesn't really show it. His Damian always comes of as a child too naive to question their parent and while Damian is quite loyal to his father in most comics he's also usually questioning Bruce quite a lot. So writing him as the only one too loyal/dumb to recognize that his father is not acting like he should is weird.

[babygirlhaljordan]

one of my biggest complaints for dc is the lack of indian ppl in gotham. like if ur setting a city in new jersey, a state thats literally dubbed as “little india” from how many indians are there yet not a single 1 in gotham?! how am i supposed to take you seriously

[thejasontoddarchives]

Brothers in Blood will trick you into thinking it’s just a silly crack scenario brought to life and Jason just concocted this plan for shits and giggles. Then you get a single page like this:

Nightwing (1996-) #121

that reveals he wanted/desperately needed shreds of acceptance even if it was coated in layers of resentment irritation and doubt after going through this:

Batman (1940-) #650

And it had to be from someone who isn’t Bruce

[frogaroundandfindout]

As a child, Dick liked to tease Bruce by dropping his voice as low as it would go and mimicking the Batman voice.

As an adult, Dick stares at the tattered cowl clutched tight in hands crusted with his fathers blood and thinks of how much it used to hurt his throat.

Why does it always have to hurt with Bruce?

[minzart]

And just like that my sanity is gone

[ghost-bxrd]

In AoM when Mini bruce is training before becoming MockingJay i feel like hed ask for what to do in certain scenarios id imagine at some point hed ask Jason what to do if he was buried alive.and Jason would be getting flashbacks while he explains.

Yeah :/ one of the reasons Jason will always insist on several trackers and communicators/phones on the kid.

And you can bet Mockingjay will eventually think back on this conversation that felt like pulling teeth, realizing his alternate self was a bad enough parent not to notice his son missing from his grave… 👁️

[jasonsbruce]

[cephalog0d]

Okay, but like. There's the whole joke about Bruce recruiting children to be his sidekicks, but honestly there's only really one that fits that.

And it's Jason. And the whole story there is, frankly, unhinged. Aaaaand then he died.

(I'm specifically talking about "first post-crisis origin stories" here because Jason and Dick, in particular, have both had multiple major retcons and revisions over the years, and some of them dramatically change how things happened.)

Like okay. Going backwards, you've got Duke who joined/led a whole Robin-based gang at a time when Bruce wasn't even Batman. You've got Damian and Cass, who were both literally born into the world of masks and capes and heroes and villains, so they weren't ever really not going to be part of it. Steph might have taken inspiration from previous heroes but she made her own identity and repeatedly refused to stop involving herself in the vigilante lifestyle. Tim, obviously, basically strong-armed Batman into letting him be Robin, despite Batman's protests.

Dick's a little more complicated just because there's so many versions, because that's what 80 years of comics and multiple universe reboots will do, and there's kind of a general trend that earlier pre-crisis versions were more of Batman being like "hello, child, would you like to be my sidekick" and later versions have leaned harder and harder into the idea that Dick was absolutely going to do this anyway, regardless of what Batman had to say about it. But even in the first post-crisis version, the flashback in Batman Year 3, Dick says he wants to find a way to keep people like that from hurting others again. When Alfred questions Bruce's offer to train him, Bruce says that Dick should learn to do things the right way if he's going to do it. It's not hard to extrapolate that, much like later versions of the origin story, Dick was going to get himself into this one way or another. (Batman (1940) #437)

And then there's Jason. Whose backstory has also had a lot of (sometimes major) revisions over the years (remember when his adoption was, like, some kind of Joker-originated long con? Fucken Nu52, man). But the original post-crisis version is pretty straightforward. Steals Batman's tires, gets caught and sent to Ma Gunn's Secret Criminal School, intervenes when Batman goes to investigate, immediately gets offered the chance to be Robin based entirely on that.

Which is itself kind of unhinged. That Bruce saw this kid who was living on his own stealing tires and went "Hey you would make a good Robin" as his very first instinct.

But if you've never read Jason's post-crisis origin, or it's been a while, it's honestly even more unhinged than that because that arc starts with Dick getting "fired" as Robin specifically for the reason that he got shot by Joker and Bruce freaked out about how the Robin identity has too many enemies and therefore Dick, a legal adult with approximately a decade of training and experience, should not use the identity anymore.

(And it's specifically about the Robin identity, in this version, because when Dick says he's not going to stop the crime fighting thing Bruce's response is basically "I know and I didn't expect you to". Honestly I could also say a lot about this version of the Robin/Nightwing transition vs. later ones and how this one definitely feels like the Heavy Hand of DC Editorial in the fact that they had no contact for so long afterwards, because the interaction really doesn't feel like it warrants that in this case compared to some later versions, but that's a whole other too-long ramble.) (Batman (1940) #408)

And then a few weeks later Bruce turns around and picks up a random kid, a literal child, and goes "Hey you would make a good Robin!"

And I think a lot about how fucking wild that is. And it's not like the people writing just didn't notice. Dick's big argument with Bruce when he finally comes back to Gotham and meets Jason isn't about the fact that Bruce took in another kid, or even necessarily about Dick feeling proprietary over the Robin identity, the thing he's angry about is that Bruce said it was too dangerous for him, an adult, someone who has trained with Batman for a decade and was already highly physically trained before that for his whole life, to be Robin, and now Bruce has turned around and painted that target onto some random new kid. He pushes, repeatedly, trying to get Bruce to justify himself and this absolutely irresponsible decision, and Bruce gives a lot of answers about how Jason was on a bad path and needed this outlet and eventually just admits that he missed having a partner. (Batman (1940) #416)

And like. Dick's right, is the thing. He is 1000% in the right in this argument. If he can't be Robin anymore because of the danger, how in the hell is it anything like a good idea to hand it over to someone way younger, way less trained, way less experienced, and expect that that wouldn't end in tragedy?

And then it did.

And yeah, Bruce, it is kinda a lot of your fault.

[myhyperfixationisiforgot]

I maintain that the animated Harley Quinn show has the best understanding of the modern Joker. He's Batman's mortal enemy. His other half, the color to Batman's gloom. Joker literally PROPOSES to Batman at one point.

Sure, he's terrible and sadistic and he absolutely hurts and kills untold numbers of people but like. Not because he likes killing, but because everything else is part of their story, and this is how the story goes. He doesn't want to KILL people, he wants to fight Batman, and in this universe Batman wants to be the good guy.

As soon as Batman is gone, he's done. Over and out. Almost capable of a normal life (as much as you can in Gotham). Finds himself a girlfriend and kids in the suburb. Willing to do his ex a favor every now and again.

Anyways I'm just obsessed with a show where it's so obvious that the Joker isn't the antithesis to good, he's just the antithesis to Batman. They really said the Joker only exists because Batman wants him to, and then actually backed it up. Insanity.

[aalghul]

even the least ooc recent talia characterizations will write her as a ruthless ice queen. once that ends is when we’ll truly get talia back. not to say that she couldn’t have grown more firm as time went on (because she did, as seen between post-tower of babel & pre-datm)….but that doesn’t mean she becomes an entirely different person for no reason other than it’s easier to constantly butcher her character if she is no longer allowed to be vulnerable and open with her love. lol. even in her lexcorp era she’s still fairly loud about loving who she loves, it’s just the sense of loyalty that she’s trying to separate from that love.

[shahrwrites]

I will never ever stop calling out Bruce for the abusive hypocrite that he is and here’s one of the many instances why:

**WARNING: the following contains spoilers for events Identity Crisis and Gotham War.**

Also, this is gonna be a lengthy read because I'm gonna elaborate on Identity Crisis a little first, so grab a snack, I guess? lol

A couple of days ago, I finished reading Identity Crisis, and a recent visit to twitter revealed to me that... it's not as well received as I had thought?? I mean, sure, it had its flaws, but most of the arguments I have read about it arises from a lack of a sufficient grip on the essence of the story.

One such argument being that "Jean only wanted to scare Sue, yet she brought a flame thrower with her." So did everyone collectively forget that she was institutionalized at the end of the story? Not to mention that she had a history of mental instability already, (Or so I've read about her) meaning she was mentally ill. She was very definitely lying through her teeth saying that she didn't mean to kill Sue.

Another was the leaguers being morally compromised because, 1) they altered Dr. Light's brain after he threatened to repeat everything he did to Sue and worse to their wives and family, and 2) Because they wiped away memories of a certain leaguer and kept what they did to Dr. Light a secret?

I don't know about you, but to me, that only shows that for the exception of one literal alien, they're all human at their core. They have flaws, they have fears, and they're not above making mistakes. For me, it painted what would be a bunch of one dimensional characters, in a more complex picture.

On another note, I understand that there may have been continuity errors, but honestly, what comic run doesn't have them? It's just become a feature of the comics over the years and given them a flexibility to explore new stories, ideas and themes.

Now, if Deathstroke was buffed up from fighting kids to one-man-up the League, if Firestorm died a little too randomly, you'll just have to excuse the poor writing in those respectives. This happens to the best of stories. At age ten, I found such ridiculous plot holes in Harry Potter of all stories it was seriously embarrassing.

Moving on,

Why did reading this comic specifically strike a nerve in me about Bruce and Jason in respect to the events of Gotham War? Because after what Dr. Light did to Sue and threatening the leaguers to do the same to their families, too, they made the choice to jumble his brains a little so as to stop such tragedy to ever befall again. Of course, Bruce wasn't there for the voting, but then he comes back when they're in the middle of transforming Light's personality. And this is what ensues:

* Identity crisis (2016)

Say what you wanna say, it was more about Batman's authority than anything else or whatever. But don't you think Bruce would have stopped it and lashed out, either way? Well, I do. Because so many times, he's shown to be more sympathetic to monstrous criminals than to a boy he raised.

* Batman – Catwoman – The Gotham War – Red Hood 002 (2023)

* Batman (2016) #138

I think you've all had enough of reading about how Bruce took away Jason's autonomy in the name of giving him a normal life when he can't even be a normal human being anymore, all without an ounce of regret, so I won't go there.

[tbcanary]

like. it’s complicated, right. bruce didn’t want to see dick hurt; he hurt dick trying to prevent it. he tried to save jason’s life; it killed him. he wanted to show steph the right path forward; he pushed her to hurt herself and others. he loves cass and admires her abilities; he pushes her to be more vigilante than human.

(i don’t have a great pithy way to summarize tim or damian or duke or babs, so i won’t try to, but their relationships are similarly complex and difficult with bruce and with the other bats.)

point is, there are no easy dynamics and there is nothing that is purely good, because the vigilantism fucks all of them up, and bruce, as the driving force behind that vigilantism, fucks them up, too. that’s just how it is. and that’s not to say he doesn’t love or care for them, it’s just that he isn’t very good at parenting them, despite being an excellent mentor and teacher in other ways.

[dubacheryking]

jason: y'know, dude, if you wanna start a fuckin relationship with someone, it might be a good step to have a halfway normal conversation for once

tim, who knows he's talking about damian: about what, jason?

jason: i don't know, his fucking interests or something?

tim: i already know all of his interests i've been stalking him for four years