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forevercloudnine · 4 years ago

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new 52 scarebat ship meme

(I had @heroes-etc give me more questions, but for scarebat this time, since we talk about it 24/7 but I never post about it. These are from this ship meme.)

4. Their favorite physical feature on each other?

There’s only one feature of Bruce’s appearance that’s scarier when he’s not wearing the batsuit, and that’s his creepy blue eyes. Especially the way Greg Capullo draws them where they’re sickly pale and have ridiculously constricted pupils.

So his eyes would definitely be in the running for Jonathan’s favorite feature, even if seeing them would require Bruce’s mask to be off, which is something New 52 Scarecrow explicitly avoids. Yes, that character trait only exists to justify why Batman’s identity is still secret after Scarecrow mind controls and subsequently institutionalizes him in “Gothtopia,” but I think it’s interesting so I’m going to pretend it’s not shoe-horned in there for meta reasons.

Actually having to see Bruce without the cowl on would definitely permanently break the illusion of Batman as a nightmarish inhuman bat demon, which I’m sure is a large part of the appeal for anyone as obsessed with fear as Jonathan Crane. But Bruce’s creepy eyes would be a serious consolation prize.

Bruce’s favorite of Jonathan’s physical features is rough, because Jonathan is famously not great re: physical features. I’m going to say his mouth, because a) that’s where the snark comes from, and b) the New 52 establishes that in one of their earlier encounters, Jonathan had sewn his own mouth shut, so it’s one of those things where a bad first impression turned positive later on leads to more fondness than if you’d made a good impression in the first place.

I just looked up the panel where he does it and I DID forget how incredibly gross his lips look here, which makes the fact that I have chosen it as Bruce’s feature seem really funny in retrospect. But I do think that seeing Jonathan’s mouth healed and unmutilated would be a reassuring reminder of how he’s stabilized since their first encounter, at least to the point that he isn’t hurting himself anymore. Also, Bruce buys him a lot of chapstick.

Bonus alternate answer that did not make it into the Google Doc:

9. How open are they with their feelings?

Bruce and Jonathan are both pretty competent deceivers in the New 52; Bruce always, Jonathan depending on how the writer is feeling (though you could argue that Bruce just has a stronger grip on reality, while Jonathan’s skill at obfuscation varies with how lucid he is).

...I was going to use Detective Comics #23.3 as an example of Jonathan being a good liar, but actually upon re-reading I’m realizing that only 1/4 rogues buy his attempt at manipulation. So maybe he’s considerably worse at hiding his intentions than he thinks he is. Regardless, he doesn’t ever attempt to disguise his obsession with Batman.

Whether or not he’d express romantic feelings or try to hide them is debatable. There’s no Masters of Fear equivalent in the New 52 establishing that he was ever mocked or punished for expressing romantic feelings for someone, though there is a flashback panel in his origin emphasizing that he was always lonely in this regard (and coincidentally doesn’t specify that his interest is in women, which is fun).

In Green Lanterns #17 he has some internal monologue about how fear is his romance and he needs Batman to feel it, but it is an INTERNAL monologue, so it’s not clear if this is something he would express to Bruce or keep to himself. Or if he’s even fully processed it himself, given how incredibly out of it he is in this comic. Most of his spoken lines are just kind of screaming incoherently. Bruce gets pretty snippy with a Green Lantern at the end of the issue for suggesting that Jonathan should be punished for his crimes as if he were in control of his actions.

Bruce is a similarly complicated answer, since for all his deceptions and shadowy mystery he pretty much wears his heart on his sleeve when it comes to romance. It’s just that his heart doesn’t express or process emotions the same way as anyone around him, which can create conflict. His (seriously underrated) love interest during Scarecrow’s origin arc, Natalya, spent most of her time dating him thinking that he didn’t care about her for this reason. He was trying to express that he loved her, but he mostly did so through complimenting her skills, which she never took as serious declarations of affection because he wasn’t being straightforward and she was insecure.

Jonathan does not himself seem like someone who would be especially secure in the idea of another person having romantic feelings towards him, so I assume that while Bruce might THINK he’s being open with any romantic feelings he develops, he would in reality just be really confusing.

13. How do they react to being away from each other?

I actually think that in general, Jonathan is one of the few people who would have no issue dealing with Bruce’s tendency to unexpectedly go AWOL for long periods of time, given that he himself has a tendency to fixate on his work to the exclusion of everything else.

But New 52 Jonathan specifically probably has pretty serious abandonment issues due to his father putting him in “the pit” and dying before he could take him out, meaning that Jonathan was waiting for his dad to come back for him for God knows how long, until Jonathan Sr.’s employers finally sent the police to investigate.

So while in general I think he wouldn’t be very clingy, any impression that Bruce had died or otherwise wasn’t coming back for him would probably be incredibly triggering. If Bruce could assuage this reaction by occasionally sending updates that at least indicated he was still alive, then I doubt Jonathan would have any problems with his absence.

(@heroes-etc: bruce sending like a checkmark emoji once a day. jonathan hears his phone ping, looks at the screen, and goes hm. good. and doesnt respond.)

Bruce meanwhile has no problem ditching literally any love interest at any time if something crime-related comes up, unless he’s considering quitting the cowl for them (as Joker probably accurately fears will happen with Catwoman in Prelude to the Wedding). But I don’t think he’d stop being Batman for Scarecrow, nor would Jonathan ever want him to — he’s interested in Batman, not necessarily Bruce Wayne.

But even though Bruce wouldn’t have an emotional problem with distance, I think he would get similarly paranoid if they went too long without contact, though for different reasons than Jonathan. Unlike some other villains (*cough* Joker and Riddler), Scarecrow has machinations that don’t require getting Batman’s attention, so if he decided to continue with his less legal experiments, he would not feel compelled to get Bruce involved. While the “World’s Greatest Detective” would probably not have an issue keeping an eye on Jonathan while he’s in Gotham, he’s considerably less capable of that in space. And Jonathan is definitely a rogue he would be obsessed with keeping an eye on, even if he reformed.

Batman & Robin Eternal established that Dick’s first supervillain conflict AND first mission leaving the country was chasing Scarecrow across the world for an entire summer, which is kind of insane considering how early it was in Batman’s career. Like, he did not have an army of children to watch Gotham for him while he was gone. He had one child, and he took that child WITH him. He left Gotham undefended for months, JUST to catch Scarecrow. Sooo that in of itself implies he wouldn’t be great at keeping his distance.

15. Does their view of themselves differ from their partner’s view?

Well, Jonathan occasionally sees Bruce as a giant bat demon, so yes.

Outside of that very obvious differing view, Jonathan in general sees himself and the rest of the rogue gallery as more vital to Batman’s identity than Bruce considers them; the extent to which he’s right varies depending on your interpretation of Bruce’s character, but it’s definitely not something Bruce would ever consciously think or say.

This is related to something that’s definitely a misconception of his, though, which is that the majority of Batman’s job revolves around supervillains like him. In Kings of Fear, when Jonathan blackmails Bruce into letting him come on patrol with him (which is a whole thing in of itself), he’s shocked at how boring most of Batman’s work is. Which probably goes along hand in hand with sometimes seeing Bruce as an almost mythologically inhuman figure.

In his defense, it’s not like he has a lot of context for what the minutiae of Batman’s job is like. He’s either fighting Batman, hiding from Batman, or imprisoned by Batman in Arkham, a place where everyone else also spends all their time fighting or hiding from Batman. Which would really skew your perspective.

Interestingly, Bruce and Jonathan are both people who pride themselves on being extremely self-aware. Both of them probably inaccurately. You can rant about how you have a perfect understanding of your troubled mental state all day long, but if you’re still dressing up like a monster at night to indulge the power fantasies you created as a traumatized child by scaring the hell out of people, there’s probably a level of self-realization you haven’t gotten to yet.

Bruce however is at least self-aware enough to regularly be able to analyze his way out of fear toxin induced hallucinations, which Jonathan is unable to do — when he’s not depicted as having become immune to his fear toxin due to overexposure (as he is in Green Lanterns #17), he can be defeated with the same formulas that Batman regularly manages to resist (like his honestly embarrassing breakdown in Nightwing #50).

Which ties into the difference between how he sees himself and how Bruce sees him: Jonathan obviously visualizes himself as a “master” of fear. He actually has the same internal monologue about fear and trauma that Bruce does in Batman: The Dark Knight #13: “Make it your own... run to what you fear... stare it in the eye... until it whimpers and backs down.” But Bruce doesn’t see Scarecrow as conquering his fear; he sees him as addicted to it, to the point of his own detriment.

Which is interesting, because Jonathan clearly sees his Scarecrow persona as a way to regain control after being victimized by his father’s fear experiments throughout his childhood. I guess Bruce’s perspective would be that Jonathan’s father instead got him addicted to fear as a child, so his attempts at agency as Scarecrow are just a) reliving his trauma over and over and b) compulsively inflicting his own trauma on others. There’s probably some truth to that, even if overall it’s probably an oversimplification (and coincidentally pretty much EXACTLY what Riddler argues Bruce is doing by “funding” Batman in Batman Annual #4, so there’s that).

20. Did either person change at all, to be with their partner?

The obvious answer here is yes, because Jonathan is a supervillain with no regard for human life while Bruce is a superhero who has dedicated his life to protecting people. So presumably one or both of them would have to make serious compromises to be together. HOWEVER. Scarecrow’s primary motivation is to research, understand and inflict fear, while Batman’s modus operandi is making his enemies afraid of him. So despite their contradiction in morals, they’re uniquely positioned to advance each other’s goals, were they to ever join forces.

Bruce never has a problem using fear toxin on Scarecrow, presumably partially out of an “eye for an eye” sense of poetic justice, but also because Batman is practical and it’s a nonlethal weapon that’s always available to him while fighting Scarecrow. If he could have fear toxin customized for his own use, it’s hard to imagine him being unwilling to use it. In Gothtopia he actually advocates for using what’s leftover from Crane’s new formula on all the inmates at Arkham, which seems about as insanely morally ambiguous as it gets. Arguably, putting fear toxin in his smoke bombs would be considerably less wrong than drugging mental patients out of their mind when they’re supposed to be receiving therapy (this is also the issue where he illegally releases Poison Ivy because she did him a favor, which is both morally questionable and relevant to the current topic).

Jonathan obviously already thinks Batman is the most interesting possible case study in fear; it’s why he keeps coming back to Bruce and Gotham despite being one of the more independent villains in Batman’s rogue gallery in the New 52. So though he would have to give up actively kidnapping people (which would be a huge sacrifice, I’m sure), teaming up with Bruce would give him unrestricted access to his favorite test subject. Unfortunately, it seems very possible that he would fall back to old tricks if he ever felt that he’d gotten everything he could out of a partnership with Bruce. Fortunately, that would probably take a VERY long time.

#scarebat #jonathan crane #scarecrow #bruce wayne #batman #ship meme #every day i think about the parallels between bruce and jonathan's childhoods that were set up by their new 52 origins #well. not every day #pretty goddamn regularly #i used to absolutely despise the new 52 scarecrow origin + characterization #but scarebat redeemed it for me

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rwdestuffs · 4 years ago

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These guys didn’t make the mom shirt Yang and Summer because they want to make a Raven redemption arc.

Which, while I’m not against it, it’s best to release that sort of shirt after the redemption arc.

It’s kinda inevitable that Raven is going to die and transfer the Maiden powers to Yang, and the only way to make that heartbreaking is if Raven redeems herself. Likely before Yang can forgive her and move on from that whole ordeal.

Or maybe it’s because they are also buying into Yang’s issues in that both the artists and Yang don’t see Summer as her mother.

Or, and this is 99% here as a joke, it’s so that they don’t feed the Summer x Raven shippers.

Like… There is no reason to release this now.

Like… It’s fine and is honestly interesting writing to have Yang have conflicting feelings regarding Raven. Raven was a driving part of her character for the longest time, was the one who gave birth to her, and also got her to start questioning things instead of accepting them blindly. But she’s also a deadbeat, a bandit, and somewhat emotionally manipulative.

Like… Yes. Her whole thing about “You can leave and join Oz and Qrow where you’ll get vague nonanswers, or you can stay and get more answers.” is emotionally manipulative, but it’s far less manipulative of emotions than the Ozluminati’s whole “Become the Fall Maiden and give up your hopes and dreams for us, or the bad guys win” gave to Pyrrha!

I loved that moment! I honestly loved that because the choice given by Raven is far more an even choice than the ultimatum that the Ozluminati gave to Pyrrha, and I was excited to see that play through!

As an aside, why is it that Raven gets the label of “emotionally manipulative” but the Ozluminati’s whole “Become the Fall Maiden for us, or the bad guys win” thing isn’t seen as gaslighting or emotionally manipulative? Is it because they’re mostly men? I see people give way more crap to Raven for her shit than anyone gives to Oz and his group for theirs.

My own irritation aside, this shirt is honestly in bad taste at best, or is malicious at worst. How often were we expected to forgive the “Shitty father” character in fiction? At this point, why not make a Zuko and Ozai shirt? How about Weiss and Jacques? Why not Crona and Medusa? Hell, let’s just do Bruce Banner and Brian Banner. Y’know, Brian Banner. The guy who did this:

We haven’t gotten our inevitable and likely rushed Raven redemption arc that will be made so that we’d be sad™ when she dies and passes the Maiden powers to Yang yet. As of right now, this shirt is shit.

#rwde #merch crit #writers crit

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dynamic-duo-deposit · 5 years ago

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Do you think Dick is a BatCat shipper? I loved him in Hush he looked so innocent and cute telling Bruce that Selina is good for him!

Before I answer this, some disclaimers-

1- I haven’t read Tom King’s Batman Rebirth run with the BatCat not-wedding yet, so I can’t speak to that nor Dick’s reaction to it. (Though I am aware of the general plot points.)

2- As with all things Batman, we are talking about 80 years of comics here. Also, while I generally enjoy and appreciate BatCat, I’m a casual shipper at best, so it’s not really my focus and I’m sure some more knowledgeable Selina fans would have more to say on the subject.

3- Oh boy, this is longer than I meant it to be.

With that out of the way- Yes, Dick Grayson is generally pretty fond of Catwoman (perhaps a bit too fond at times) and subsequently, her relationship with Bruce.

Regarding Hush, Dick being pro-BatCat is straight from the comic-

(Batman #615)

But going back in time, I think this question was prompted by these panels from Batman #3, and that is pretty typical of their early interactions. Basically, Golden Age Robin spends most of Catwoman’s first appearances being profoundly unimpressed by Bruce’s Thirst. (Likewise to modern reinterpretations.)

However by 1947 in Detective Comics #122, Dick has reached the point where he seems amused by it and teases Catwoman about Batman, even if she denies any feelings.

(Spoilers: She’s lying. She’s had a crush on Batman since issue #3)

Most of the time though, while they did interact, they didn’t have much one-on-one time, and any connection between Selina and Dick took the backseat to each of their relationships with Bruce. Catwoman was also reformed for a while, and went through extended periods where she wasn’t even showing up in the comics.

Here’s where I say that I’m really rusty on the Silver Age, so someone else might have a better memory of good Dick and Selina scenes from that period.

(I’m also curious about their relationship in the original Earth-2 comics where Bruce and Selina were married, since I haven’t read much of that. Though I know Selina dies and I don’t get the sense they had much of a connection.)

However, I have been reading a lot of Bronze Age comics lately and The Lazarus Affair storyline does have some really great Dick and Selina (And Dick shipping BatCat) moments worth sharing.

Dick goes to Selina for assistance with Talia, because no one else could “help [him] in the same way [Selina] can.”

(Batman #332)

This leads to Robin and Catwoman going on a mission together and eventually discovering Talia and Batman kissing, which upsets Selina.

(Batman #332)

Catwoman has her own side-story trying to prove Talia’s involvement with shady endeavors, and they talk about Selina’s feelings for Batman.

(Batman #333)

Dick and Selina have good teamwork throughout the story though. Complete with undercover disguises and other shenanigans.

(Batman #333)

While Talia is ultimately cleared, (also- she dies and is resurrected. As it goes with that family.) Dick makes it very clear to Bruce at the end here, that he is very much “Team Selina.”

(Batman #335)

Dick eventually leaves to join the Titans and isn’t around Gotham as much, and when Dick does start showing up in Gotham again more in the 90′s/early 2000′s I know that Nightwing and Catwoman are both in some of the same big Bat-events, but outside of sharing panels I can’t think of any really memorable interactions between the two off the top of my head?

We do have things like this though-

(Gotham Knights #10)

And this-

(Nightwing #52)

They also had a couple of nice interactions during the Dickbats era.

(Gotham City Sirens #7)

Although not without conflict. (Or weird compliments. Or Selina referring to herself as Bruce’s possession. Yikes.)

(Batman #692)

Anyways, this is not even close to a complete collection of Dick and Selina moments and as I disclaimed at the beginning, I’m not up-to-date with recent BatCat-related events.

To be fair, I don’t think Dick and Selina have even had much interaction or connection (BatCat-related or otherwise) outside the wedding arc post-new 52 reboot? Except kinda Forever Evil, which made it clear she didn’t even know who he was. Which is depressing.

(Forever Evil #3)

But yeah, I really enjoy Selina and Dick’s relationship, and it’s one of the factors that makes me enjoy BatCat. (It’s nice when your kid approves of your girlfriend.)

Dick and Selina are both very adaptable, their interactions tend to be lighthearted and fun (when they’re not too cougar-ly), and they’ve worked pretty well as a team when the situation that calls for it. When Selina’s criminal activity isn’t getting in the way, they seem to enjoy each other.

From a Dick and Bruce perspective, he also likes that she can bring a different side out of Bruce, and it’s also often a fun opportunity for lighthearted banter and for Dick to get to tease Bruce in a way no one else can.

(Batman #615)

(Because Bruce can be pretty useless whenever Catwoman shows up and Dick is aware of this.)

(Batman #15)

I do have to say that calling Dick a “BatCat shipper” does feel a bit, I dunno, reductive? He genuinely respects and even likes Selina a lot of the time, and she’s one of his favorites when it comes to Bruce’s girlfriends because of that, but it’s not exactly his character’s focus. Dick has his own life without worrying about who Bruce is dating.

With that said– Dick is definitely a BatCat shipper and these are some of the highlights from 80 years of comics proving it.

He’s a fan.

(Batman #615)

#batcat #dick grayson #selina kyle #bruce wayne #batman #catwoman #robin #nightwing #commentary #I'm a pretty firm multishipper when it comes to DC superheoes and my Batman OTP is Bruce/Gotham #but this question sent me down a rabbithole into old comics and reminded how much I do enjoy BatCat when it's written well #so I thank you for that anon #reply #Anonymous

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cosmicheromp3 · 5 years ago

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Hi, I’m kinda new to the fandom, and I wanted to read more about dick Grayson and the batfamily. Do you think you could recommend some comics I should start with?

hi, of course! i actually have a comic recs blog @whatthefuckisacomic, where there’s a batfam tag and a dick grayson tag that you can browse, plus a page dedicated to tips for starting out with comics. the batfam is a bit hard to rec for because quality can vary drastically from comic to comic, and it’s hard to go “you might have to read this because the event is important to understand what’s going on, but it’s a pain because the writer sucks”. for a starting point i’ll try to stay away from those, though.

under the read more i more or less ended up following a timeline for dick, but i tried to give you options in case something isn’t up your alley and you want to move on to something else. i hope it’s still easy to follow, and don’t hesitate to ask me any follow up questions! these are all gonna be pre-reboot recommendations, because dick’s characterization was very watered down with the n52 and i frankly prefer to just stick with stuff from before.

let’s get into it!

a good starting point for dick, because it’s easy to read and quite beginner friendly, would be robin: year one – i don’t like chuck dixon’s writing in general, but this is one of the exceptions where i would recommend it. an enjoyable origin story you can also read is batman: year three, published in batman #436-439, which mixes present time events (set after jason todd’s death) with flashbacks to dick’s origin. it’s not necessary to read batman: year one and year two before to understand what’s happening in year three, but they’re important batman stories, so if you’re interested in bruce i’d encourage you to read those too.

while we’re still on origin stories, if you want a comic that goes straight to the facts, thoroughly but superficially, and is quite useful to get a good idea for how dick became robin, formed the teen titans, then became nightwing, you can check out secret origins (1986) #13. just keep in mind that it details the pre-crisis version of events, so some of it has been retconned and it might conflict with other stuff you’ve read, or will read.

personally, i find that dick’s most enjoyable stories happen when he’s with the titans, so i strongly encourage you to check out the new teen titans, if you don’t mind older comics style.

as for dick becoming nightwing, you should read the original story where it happened, which would be the judas contract, an arc published in tales of the teen titans (it’s collected as a tpb for easier reading). marv wolfman recently wrote a story set during this time in the robin 80th anniversary special and it has great dick and bruce characterization imo. i don’t recommend reading the whole special if you’re not familiar with the robins already because there’s a lot of callbacks to other comics, but after you’ve read the judas contract you can check out wolfman’s story at least. again, these follow pre-crisis continuity, but they’re very much worth it.

then there’s the nightwing (1996) solo which is... a mess, mostly. tomasi’s run (collected under nightwing: freefall and nightwing: the great leap) is usually regarded as the best from that comic. other than that this solo can be mostly boring or plain bad at times. i read all 153 issues of it (it was one of my first batfam comics i read), and i’ll say that while it could be a drag it was useful in that following a comic going from 1996 to 2009 helped me find some important events in batman history when it crossed over – same can be said for the robin (1993) solo. i’d only tell you to check it out if you have a lot of time in your hands and very low standards, but please don’t start there. i’m only saying this cause it was useful for me when i was in a moment when i wanted to read everything. if that doesn’t apply to you, better to stay away.

that tangent out of the way, let’s go back to comics i do recommend lmao. nightwing: old friends, new enemies is a good one where he teams up with roy harper. another one to go with my dickroy agenda is outsiders (2003), but before you read that you need to read titans/young justice: graduation day to understand the context under which the outsiders are formed. dick’s characterization during outsiders is very particular because it’s set at a low point in his life after he’s lost donna troy; he might seem different than in other comics, but it’s very important to understand him as a character.

lastly, dick had a pretty solid stint as batman after bruce “died” – i always say that while being batman wasn’t good for dick, dick was good as batman. for this period in his life, you have batman: long shadows, then batman: the black mirror. for more batfam interactions during this time, you can read gates of gotham, and for his relationship with damian there’s batman & robin (2009).

these should give you a good idea of some important things in his character’s history. just as a reassurance: don’t be intimidated by the amount – he’s a very old character so it’s only natural there’s a lot –, and any of these you could probably enjoy without having read everything before (except i wouldn’t recommend you start with a comic like outsiders without being acquainted with his character first, since it has very specific characterization).

as for more general batfam comics, i know a lot of people point to gotham knights for that, but i personally haven’t read it so i can’t speak for it. and i can’t make this post without recommending batgirl (2000), because it’s just great. you might also want to read jason’s death (a death in the family) and tim’s subsequent introduction (a lonely place for dying) just because they’re so often referenced, and i could go on with other important events... but there’s so many i’d rather tell you to follow another character’s reading list, than read important comics without context for the sake of reading them. this is where i plug in my sideblog again; if there’s any other batfam characters you’re interested in reading more about, you can find them listed in the tags page.

as a final note i feel like it’s my duty to encourage you to branch out to comics other than the batfam, which is what people new in the fandom tend to read the most just because it’s the most popular. i still love them and i still read their comics but there’s a lot of good comics for other characters, a lot of them better than many batfam comics since, like i said, they can be a gamble as to their quality. sometimes there’s dynamics that the fandom demands for batfam comics that can actually be found in canon for other dc families.

if you want to branch out but you’re unsure about jumping straight into another family with zero knowledge, i recommend reading team comics that include batfam members and using those to get to know more characters. i actually recommend doing that even if you’re not trying to branch out yet – reading about batfam characters outside of the gotham context, which can be very isolationist, usually adds a different dimension to them and you’ll find interesting takes on these same characters. for example, some of my favourite characterization for tim happens in young justice (1999) – another very fun beginner friendly comic i recommend –, and i enjoy bruce more when he’s with the justice league or alongside superman than i do in his solo comics.

and that’s it! don’t hesitate to ask me or DM me for anything else, and just remember that recommendations are very subjective. when reading comics what usually happens, to me at least, is that you pick something up, maybe leave it for a while, check out something else, come back to the first thing, and so on. while following a list or something you might find a different character that you enjoy and want to know more about, you might see an event that catches your interest, realize you like a writer and want to check out their stuff, and in my opinion allowing yourself to follow what you like is the most effective way to make reading comics an actually enjoyable experience.

i made it into a list in case you don’t want to read through my ramblings every time, ordered a bit better:

robin: year one

batman: year three

optional before: batman year one, batman year two

secret origins (1986) #13

the new teen titans

the judas contract

nightwing: old friends, new enemies

outsiders (2003)

for context read titans/young justice: graduation day

nightwing: freefall

nightwing: the great leap

batman: long shadows

batman & robin (2009)

batman: the black mirror

gates of gotham

not dick specific

batgirl (2000) - for cass

young justice (1999) - for tim

good luck!

#dick grayson #batfam #rec list #comic recs #i was gonna make this a bullet point type post but i can't mention anything w/o commenting lmao #Anonymous

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threewaysdivided · 5 years ago

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Hey, I know this is like a billion years from where you are in YJ:DW, but I had this thought strike me: what if Danny could see and talk to Jason Todd's ghost? (assuming Red Hood isn't YJ canon) There's so much potential for angst there, especially if Danny is the only one who can see him, and decides to try and get Jason to cross over. Or heck, what if Danny had a hand in Jason's revival?

That’s a neat idea that definitely has some good angst potential. Have to admit though, I’m not entirely sure how it would work within the ghost-lore headcanons I’m using for YJ:DW specifically.

I can write a longer post on this if anyone wants but Basically ghosts in the Deathly Weapons-verse break into 2 unrelated categories that get lumped together for looking sort-of-similar on the surface: Ectoplasmic (the ones we see in DP) and what we’ll call Shades (DC ghosts like Secret, Deadman etc). Ectoplasmic “ghosts” are their own inter-dimensional entities so they can’t really “revive” in the traditional sense, and “passing on” is pretty much limited to accepting what they are and chilling in the Ghost Zone forever or straight-up discorporealising/ re-dying. Shade ghosts are the more traditional original-soul-bound-to-the-physical-world; either because external force is trapping them there, or because they were willful/ powerful/ knowledgeable enough to bind themselves. These ones can potentially be “revived” more easily, and can “pass on” if they’re released from whatever is holding them to this world.

If Jason came back as a Ectoplasmic ghost he’d work the same way DP ghosts do; most likely everyone would be able to see him unless he had some kind of Young Blood-esque visibility condition (in which case anyone who fit the criteria would also see him), and outside of extreme edge-cases revival would be off the table. (Throw a ‘plasmic ghost into a Lazarus Pit and they’ll just climb back out, except now wet and mad at you for giving them a skin condition.)

More likely that Jason would come back as a Shade-ghost (especially since he seems intended to revive in some capacity in YJ canon), in which case he might only be visible to certain people. In such a case though, I’m not sure it would be Danny who sees him.

I feel like Danny would be the least emotionally and symbolically connected to Robin!Jason of the Wayne-household residents who’ve appeared in YJ:DW. As mentioned in this post Danny kind of falls in this weird spot of being Dick’s Brother first and foremost where all the other Bat-Kids are Bruce’s Son/Daughter, and he has some personal qualms about Dick handing off the Robin mantle (and how close he feels he can/ “should” be to Jason) to work through because of that. Outside of the both-technically-death thing, I’m not sure there’d be much reason for Jason’s shade to attach himself to Danny as an anchor compared to Bruce, Dick, Alfred or even possibly Tim or some location of personal significance (unless Danny seeing him is due to the ectoplasm, in which case other ecto-ghosts should see him too).

Although, in this very specific hypothetical, Danny is probably one of the better people Jason’s ghost could attach too. We’re about a billion years from the end of YJ:DW right now but Grief and Healing is going to be a major theme of the core emotional arc, so by the time Jason comes along Danny’s going to be much better equipped to deal with even his canon death. Add to that that Danny’s had to work with ecto-ghosts and therefore tangentially-death-related problems since he was 14 and he’d be less thrown by Jason’s “reappearance” and more likely to think “this could be a ghost problem” early on compared to Bruce and Dick whose first thoughts would likely be “this is an illusion caused by losing my mind from guilt/grief”, especially if Danny can’t also see him. Plus, by that point Dick and Bruce do trust Danny pretty implicitly and let him take point where ghosts are concerned.

If Jason did appear as a Shade ghost, Danny’s process would probably look a little something like this:

Confirm that Jason is, in fact, a ghost and not a product of him going nuts

Work together to find a way to prove this to the others (while also working through any personal feelings and unresolved communication/ conflict issues)

Call in Bruce, Dick and Alfred and let them know

Family drama/ angst ensues

Collectively find Dr Fate/ John Constantine/ any other amenable magic-spiritualist hero who exists on Earth-16 to figure out how best to Deal With This.

As for Danny helping Jason (or other ghosts) to “pass on”, I kind of feel like that’s…. not really his ballpark. I don’t see Danny as someone who’d compulsively seek out other ghosts and feel obliged to “move them along” unless they were actively in distress or causing damage/ distress/ fear/ pain to others. Like, Johnny 13 wants to ride his motorcycle at full tilt through the streets of a town, terrifying the citizens? Get in the thermos or get out. Johnny 13 wants to ride his motorcycle at full tilt down a long, deserted county road? Fine, just don’t go into towns or bother other drivers. He’ll leave them alone so long as they leave other people alone.

In that regard I see Danny as sort of the fixer compared to Jazz’s counsellor - if a ghost is acting up because of some problem (or comes to him for help) then he’ll deal with it so that they can leave, or at least chill out. And if he can’t fix it (because the solution is harmful, the ghost’s nature/powers are too inherently dangerous or they’re just there being dicks by choice) he’ll capture and send them back to the Ghost Zone (or find someone who can exorcise a Shade) to remove the problem that way. He might gently float the suggestion, but if Jason wanted to pass on then that would be Jason’s choice to explore unless he specifically asked for help or became distressed/ disruptive enough to force Danny’s hand.

Similarly, I think revivals wouldn’t really be Danny’s ballpark either; it’s not a solution he’d like and he has neither the knowledge, interest, skills or equipment to actually facilitate any of the rare reliable edge-cases methods of resurrection. Danny prefers to keep to the ‘best left alone’ side of ‘Meddling with dark forces best left alone’ as much as is possible.

Personally I kind of prefer the revival stories where Jason isn’t around until his actual return. I think there’s more easy gut-punch mileage in most of those versions. That structure forces the other characters to accept that he’s “not coming back” and try to process all the conflict and pain that it brings, only to then sledgehammer the new status-quo by having him reappear, now changed, at point where his death has significantly altered their dynamics with him, his memory and the other characters. By comparison, having him come back as a ghost and then revive kind of smooths and flattens that trajectory to one where anyone who can interact with him (even indirectly) gets their emotional healing accelerated, and the status quo eventually slips back closer to how it was (with them mostly just having to adjust to physical limitations of the new form he takes), only to reform fully when he “comes back” for real.

But, anyway, that’s part of larger personal nitpick with the use of “ghosts” in stories. I find that the meaningful thing about death (and that seems to get weirdly missed by a lot of works) isn’t the moment of impact itself so much as the persisting loss and how the survivors cope. We are haunted by absence more than by presence. Most cases of bringing the dead character (or at least their mind/personality) back in some capacity tends to soften the weight of that for me, unless the ghost is meant to function as a some kind of metaphor for the healing/ acceptance/ closure process and “move on” when the other characters do.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this long and somewhat tangential ramble. It probably won’t be happening in YJ:DW or YJ:DW-EU but in a story which took a more hardline all-ghosts-are-dead-people/ horror approach to world-building, I can definitely see the someone-seeing-Jason’s-ghost set-up having a lot of angst and uncanny potential. (I know there are a couple of fics like that already out there but I can’t remember their titles right now, sorry!)

#Jason Todd #seeing ghosts #I mean to be fair YJ:DW takes about a billion years to update #The main story will finish 6-9 months post S1 #So most of the Legacy / Invasion characters won't be there #but I did have the loose idea that some of the major S2 and timeskipped events would still be canon in the Deathly-Weapons-verse #I quite dislike many storytelling/ execution choices made by Outsiders so I'm declaring any reboot content non-canon to YJ:DW #But it seems like Jaybird was intended to come back #I find it kind of hard to deal with YJ!Jason because of how cake-and-eat-it they've been about his character #they seem to want to use his death/revival for impact without actually doing the work to make it impactful within their own series #he's ended up as this odd non-entity in canon #which means I have to invent a bunch of conjecture from broader comics with literally no substantiation #IDK maybe YJS4 and beyond will adress that #Young justice: deathly weapons #DPxYJ #ghosts #shade ghosts #ectoplasmic ghosts #kaiobeast #3WD answers

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nothingofnotereally · 6 years ago

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Unpacking Rebirth!Talia’s Upbringing

Okay so…. Can we talk about Rebirth Talia al Ghul? People who aren’t familiar with her history, her almost 50 year history at this point, and more importantly aren’t familiar with it in depth often have no idea why it is that Talia fans think that her treatment post Morrison, but even moreso post-Rebirth, is a radical rebranding of the character they’ve known for so long. And I could talk about that, and maybe one day I will, but today I’m going to talk about something different, but related.

I’m going to talk about Talia’s background in Rebirth, how it accounts for her being a dramatically different character than she was in her classic form and whether she’s still salvageable as anything other than a mustache-twirler.

I. The Demon’s Daughter

Let’s be clear: the little we know of Talia’s rebirth childhood is absolutely horrific. Pure nightmare fuel. While their traditional dynamic was troubling and problematic, it was also loving in its way, and Ra’s was controlling of her, while also protective of her. Now, instead, we have this:

This issue has been out for a while, but I haven’t seen anyone really unpack what it is Talia is saying here, because we’re all focused on the stupid swordfight with Selina. But look at what it is Talia is saying and what it means about her upbringing.

Talia is saying that, basically since she was a toddler, she has been physically abused, and forced to fight, by her centuries old swordmaster father. In fact, her very first memory is bleeding from wounds caused by her father. From then on, her life is a fight to survive against her own father, which I’m guessing was pretty damn difficult especially when she was an actual child. And often, when she loses?

She dies. Or rather, she is murdered. Repeatedly. By her father.

And then he resurrects her and starts over.

And about those resurrections? It’s not like he just picks her newly killed body and immediately brings her back - check out that first panel on the second row. Not only is she killed and revived countless times, he lets her corpse at least partially rot before resurrecting her, so that when she returns to life, she is treated to the sight of her skin regrowing over her rotted flesh. And as soon as Ra’s notices she’s alive again… they start again.

How long did that go on? Unclear, but she’s still fighting him as a grown woman in the equivalent of this time period in The Gift...

...so I’m guessing the answer is “it didn’t stop until she left him.”

To be honest, I’m not really sure what the Rebirth version of Ra’s and Talia’s dynamic even was. The classic relationship doesn’t work at all with this backstory, and we’ve never really seen a lot of what the new paradigm might be since they’ve been out of contact since well before Rebirth. But what we do know is, she was an active assassin from a young age.

Unlike Classic Talia who was actually never an active assassin at all:

We can also glean bits and pieces of information regarding her Rebirth upbringing from other appearances. Over in Silencer, we find out that despite her brilliance, the fact that she was carrying out assassinations for him, and the fact that she could defeat her ancient swordmaster father even as a child, she was never good enough for him:

He was dissatisfied with her, and so he created metahumans using his genes to replace her. Ultimately, this drives her to plot against Ra’s because... who wouldn’t?

It’s not entirely clear what her ambitions were, specifically but judging from this bit of Batman and Robin (New52, but seemingly still canon for Damian’s backstory):

It involved winning Batman over to her side and ruling the world through Damian. This is further confirmed by her comment to Honor in Silencer Annual #1 here:

Where she indicates that Bruce is family to her, and still features in her future plans. What’s strange here is that she also says later that she intends to kill him personally, which is. Weird and out of nowhere, but what else is new. As a sidenote, Silencer is just strange because it ignores everything about Talia’s history not just in terms of changing her personality but in terms of ignoring the timeline of events, but... moving along...

Talia intends to form Leviathan to break free of him and pursue her own agenda. But, while apparently finding her insufficient, Ra’s cannot let her go. Not only that, he actively works to destroy everything she is trying to accomplish, including trying to kill Batman just because she desires him. In fact, he also tries to have Talia herself assassinated:

Another thing is, Rebirth Talia is rather older than she looks, as evidenced by her having been an adult when she met Honor.

Which means, in the end, we have a woman who was abused and repeatedly killed by her father, then thrown in a Lazarus Pit (but only after her body has lain around long enough to partially decompose!) and forced to repeat the cycle for who knows how long, but apparently quite a long time - decades, maybe centuries. Who even knows. She’s been working as an assassin since her teens. Despite her excelling and even surpassing him in various ways, he considers her inferior, and begins seeking to replace her with artificially created metahuman heirs. Eventually, Talia decides she wants to break with him, and he responds by first trying to destroy everything she cares about and then trying to have her killed.

OKAY, SO. Nightmare fuel. I genuinely can’t begin to imagine what it would be like growing up in that environment, and under the circumstances it’s certainly no shock that Rebirth Talia is warped.

Even so, what stands out to me in the B&R issue is that, initially, even her wildest ambitions required her to exercise power through a man – it’s just her son instead of her father or her potential husband. This says a good deal about how her upbringing, as well as her father’s fixation on marrying her off, has affected her self-image. And for those who say Talia evidences arrogance and self-importance… yes she does. Which is often a symptom of low self-esteem. In fact even Narcissistic Personality Disorder typically stems from overcompensation for a feeling of worthlessness.

The traditional/original Ra’s/Talia dynamic had some elements of this story, but not all and not nearly to the same extent. Furthermore, Classic Talia had something else - someone else - to love and look to for hope. Rebirth Talia does not. Because as far as I can tell, in Rebirth, Talia and Batman’s relationship has very little in common with the conflicted romance they shared in their original stories. And that’s how we transition to...

II. Beloved of the Bat?

So, Bruce Wayne.

Again, the extent of their relationship in Rebirth is unclear, but it definitely isn’t what it was pre-Rebirth.

The original Bruce/Talia story is basically as such: Talia meets him when she’s kidnapped by Dr. Daark, and falls in love with him. Bruce is also drawn and attracted to her. This results in Ra’s deciding to test Bruce for suitability as Talia’s husband and his own heir. Bruce passes, but unsurprisingly has no interest in running a criminal empire, though he does fall in love with Talia. This leads to a rather intense on/off romance that ultimately results in Damian Wayne, and continues until Tower of Babylon when Talia finally tires of being stuck between her father and her lover and breaks away from both of them. With Bruce and Talia’s relationship having been called to an end (by her, mind you – one day I may do a writeup on Bruce/Talia and how often what happened between them is misremembered by writers and readers alike), Bruce becomes involved with Catwoman in Hush. Even so, we see in Death and the Maidens that Bruce does still love Talia.

Meanwhile, Talia’s previously unknown sister Nyssa kidnaps and repeatedly murders and resurrects her (sound familiar?) until she more or less goes mad. By the end of the ordeal, she can barely speak, and she willing to do anything for Nyssa to avoid being killed again. This results in Talia disavowing her love for Bruce, which seems to be the catalyst for him to finally move on from her, though not without considerable pain.

Okay this is important to run down, because the Rebirth story has changed everything about their relationship.

Gotta love those evil expressions. It helps us remember that she’s a heartless monster.

Anyway so, In Silencer Annual #1, Silencer does note that Talia had previously said she was in love with Batman, so we know that she loved him, okay. But what does love mean to Rebirth Talia? We can find the answer to that if we go back to Roles of Engagement:

She “loved” him because she considered him a potential equal. That’s not really a bad basis for loving someone initially – and even Classic Talia’s love for Bruce was initially sparked from a place of admiration. But while Classic Talia eventually grew into a more complete love for him, it seems like Rebirth Talia is still stuck on objective: seek worthy mate. In fact, once it’s clear that she and Bruce are not coming back together, she just goes ahead and propositions Slade Wilson because she figures he can give her strong children, too:

Notably, this obsession with strong offspring sort of comes out of nowhere when Morrison takes over, but anyway, from that perspective it’s not hard to understand why Bruce’s feelings for her would also be somewhat muted in Rebirth:

Because while Classic Bruce/Talia was a love story that stretched for over 30 years in our time, and most of their adult lives in canon… Rebirth Bruce/Talia is repeatedly presented as a short infatuation on his end, and a dangerous obsession with genetics on hers. The above panel is from Batman #66, and is part of the Knightmares arc, which is important because while it appears to be Selina saying it… it’s actually Bruce’s thoughts about the women in his life coming out through his imagined version of Selina. And to him, those women amount to nothing much – none of them even warrant a direct callout. Everyone besides Selina is a “whoever.”

Interlude and Sum I

So... Classic Ra’s was controlling, possessive and dismissive of her at times, but he was also devoted, protective and genuinely loving. The relationship was complicated and problematic but affectionate.

Rebirth Ra’s is an abusive tyrant who repeatedly murders and belittles his daughter and, when she decides to break from him, attempts to systematically destroy everything she cares about and then have her killed.

Classic Bruce/Talia was a complicated romance between two people who genuinely loved each other, but were always separated by circumstances. He loved her for years, and she loved him unconditionally, and they struggled over that from the day they met until they permanently separated as a result of her being brainwashed.

Rebirth!Talia went in search of someone she considered worthy of her so they could have a genetically perfect child to conquer the world with. Bruce briefly had feelings for her in a moment between romantic rounds with Catwoman.

My point is this: Rebirth Talia has never experienced genuine love or support from anyone in her life, or for anyone in her life. Her relationship with the two men she traditionally loved, and whose love for her has imprisoned, empowered and defined her for much of her existence as a character, was utterly gutted in Rebirth, leaving Rebirth Talia’s life as a prolonged emotional void. Which makes what comes next remarkable in some ways… and predictable in others.

Because this is where we talk about Damian.

III. Olympias to his Alexander

Now, I’m not going to get into the circumstances behind Damian’s conception because what the whole hell, there is absolutely no consistency there. Various people are very invested in one or another of the myriad versions of his conception that DC has repeatedly retconned and revised, generally leaning to whichever one fits their preferred personal narrative, and that’s fine but objectively? Absolutely no consistency, situation unclear. So let’s just go with “Damian resulted from this mess.”

In Batman and Robin #0 we see that Talia basically raised him the way Ra’s raised her… with some major deviations. She used his desire to know his heritage and know his father’s name as the carrot to motivate him to succeed, rather than the fear of death and pain as a stick to punish him for failure.

Talia does not kill her son, whom she duels with wooden blades rather than steel. And she is not shown to physically abuse him… aside from the swordfights, which of course is already bad.

Mind you, I’m not denying that his upbringing is still brutal. What I’m saying is, placed in the context of her own upbringing we can see that she was trying to raise him with more kindness and greater love than her father had her – an improved parental style, but still reflective of the only style she, herself, has ever known.

So it’s predictable that he’s essentially mistreated… because she literally has never encountered an emotionally healthy relationship and wouldn’t know how to raise him any differently even if she wanted to.

But it’s also remarkable because despite that, you can see she is trying to be a better mother than Ra’s was a father, and not let Damian grow up feeling unwanted and unworthy the way she did, herself.

Unlike Ra’s, she never tells Damian he is insufficient – on the contrary, she holds him up as the chosen, a conqueror, and dreams of a future when he will lead with both parents at his back. Remember, this is a woman who was never seen as worthy of inheriting Ra’s al Ghul’s organization, and she wants to make sure Damian knows the world is his to hold. The bit about having both parents is important, too, because per Batman Inc, Talia felt deprived of her mother, whom Ra’s had discarded as soon as she was no longer useful to him.

In short, she does for Damian everything she wished Ra’s had done for her.

But, in so doing, she falls into many of the same traps that Ra’s had fallen into: she doesn’t provide what Damian wants, or even what he actually needs. Instead, she gives him what he asks for, and what she thinks he needs. But for someone who grew up without love, trying to understand how to provide it is complicated, and difficult.

Anyway, when Damian finally defeats her, she fulfills her promise and brings him to meet Bruce. This involves a last ditch effort to unite their family: she offers to reform.

But not only does Bruce reject her, ultimately Damian does, as well. This is, from Damian’s perspective, completely understandable. Who wants to live that kind of life? But from Talia’s perspective she has now been rejected by her own child, in addition to her father and the man she hoped to spend her life with. You can see the raw hurt this causes her clearly, as a woman who had always yearned for family starts having exchanges like this:

And while we’re at it, count Honor as another person who left her.

And to be clear here, I’m not saying they were wrong to leave her. Rebirth Talia is not a good person, not a kind person, not really anyone I’d want to willingly hang around. And yes, she’s clearly manipulating Honor with her affectionate words, although I’d argue this is largely because manipulation is all she's ever experienced and all she knows how to do.

So, what am I saying?

Interlude and Sum II - Why Is She Like That?

Just to catch it all up, we have a woman who was abused by her father, including being repeatedly murdered and resurrected, treated as inferior and insufficient despite being Ra’s’ equal or superior in many ways, who spent her young life performing assassinations and otherwise conforming her behavior to her father’s demands only to discover he was creating alternate heirs because she’s somehow still not enough for him. She has never experienced love, seemingly has no real understanding of what it is.

When she settles on someone she believes that she loves, she is ultimately nothing to him but a “whoever” - a temporary respite from the yo-yo relationship he has with another woman.

Then Damian happens and, from her perspective, she raises him with all the love, pride and approval that she herself never had. In an effort to unite the family, she also attempts to do what would please Ra’s - conform her behavior to Bruce’s preferences - but he still rejects her.

Meanwhile, she has “adopted” Honor Guest, whom she also shows favor to, but who also wants to leave her, and ultimately does just that, without even saying goodbye.

And then we have some. Quirks in her story - some specifics that really bear looking at in greater detail.

Repeated murder and resurrection: So how bad is that? It’s bad. The first time Talia experiences this kind of thing is in Death and the Maidens, which is probably no longer canon. But okay this was Classic Talia and for comparison, this breaks Talia’s spirit so completely that she essentially becomes Nyssa’s puppet.

She is literally never the same again, even after Nyssa is killed. In fact, it’s this that turned her into the monstrous Talia that we meet in Morrison’s run to begin with, so we already know she can be broken by this kind of treatment… but let’s use another example.

Let’s use… Batman.

He’s got one of the strongest wills in DC, right? Well, lets rewind to a story called Emperor Joker, where the Joker attained Mr. Mxyzpltck’s omnipotent powers which he uses to repeatedly torture and murder Batman and resurrect him every day.

This completely destroys Bruce to the point where the Spectre has to erase his memory of it in order to make Bruce functional as a person again.

So imagine that happening to Talia, as a child, at her own father’s hands. And not for days, for years. And that’s without even considering the method of resurrection, which brings us to…

Lazarus Madness: Let’s talk about the Lazarus Pit. It’s a magical mystical ley line-powered bath that resurrects and heals. We all know that. But the thing is, that’s not all it does: it also drives the one bathed or healed mad. For a short time, they become superhumanly strong, and also overtaken with violent bloodlust. The first Lazarus pit was used to resurrect a sultan’s son, who promptly murdered Ra’s al Ghul’s wife Sora. Since then, Ra’s himself has been the primary beneficiary of its benefits, with interesting results… namely that Ra’s has been slowly going mad for centuries.

Because even though the intensity of the bloodlust and madness fades, it never completely disappears, and cumulative effect eventually twists a person’s nature beyond recognition. In his first life, Ra’s was a good-natured doctor, but over the many exposures he has found himself becoming progressively worse.

A quote from Denny O’Neil, Ra’s’s creator:

“...we gave Ra’s a benevolent motivation. You can certainly quarrel with his methods ... But Ra's is a loony bird. He’s been alive for 400 years and he’s become a maniacal sociopath.”

Dick Grayson concurs, and acknowledges its cause:

Even Ra’s himself is aware of it – this is why he didn’t want Jason bathed in the Lazarus Pit, because he is all too aware of the demons it stirs in a person.

So, what is the impact on Talia, who is quickly and repeatedly tortured and killed, and then resurrected using a method that is known to drive people insane? I’m going with “not the best.” It’s frankly astounding that she still resembles a human, psychologically.

Assassin work at a young age: While there has been a long-standing debate about the effects of exposure to violence on all people and children in particular, in general the consensus is, yes, exposure does cause desensitization. Obviously this doesn’t mean people are going to generally become serial killers because they played a violent video game, but it does have a numbing effect – just think about how people who watch enough horror films are harder to scare with horror films.

Now imagine that, instead of watching people murder and commit violent acts on television or on film, a child is instead expected to perform said acts themselves. How desensitizing would that be?

Frankly, to see all we need to do is look at Damian, who grew up under similar circumstances and, as a result, initially exhibits what I can only call red flag behavior.

The thing is, Damian isn’t so dissimilar from his mother in this regard. Like Talia, he becomes morally twisted, emotionally empty and ultimately tethered not to his own sense of morality or self but to other people’s perceptions and demands of him and who he should be. Before he meets Bruce, he adheres to the League’s expectations, and when he meets Bruce, he instead aligns himself with Bruce’s code of behavior, even though he does not actually believe in it. It takes a good deal of time and work for him to begin developing his own beliefs and boundaries. The difference between Damian and Talia is that he had Bruce and Bruce, despite his flaws, loved Damian enough to try for his sake.

Arguably, this is a defining difference between Classic and Rebirth Talia, as well. Classic Talia also viewed Bruce as her beacon and her path to salvation and hope.

But if, in Rebirth, Bruce never really loved her, and in fact she barely loved him, then there is no catalyst for her to begin seeking another path. Rebirth Talia didn’t have anything but the League, and even Ra’s barely cared for her. As a result, she was boxed into her role by fate, which she acknowledges in Teen Titans, as she wishes better for her son than she had herself.

Anyway, obviously, there are no studies on the effect of taking assassin work as a child, but my general guess here is that she has a twisted understanding of the value of life and the significance of death. Which brings me to another massive issue that permeates the character and may even help explain her choice to put a hit on Damian at one point.

Death as Optional: Death is an inevitability, right? Like taxes. Nothing you do can prevent it, or reverse it, so all you can do is live with it, and make the most of what you have. It’s said that the existence of death is what lends meaning to life, and while I’m not sure I’m quite on board with that, the fact that death is permanent certainly does lend a certain gravitas to it. It’s also the reason we fear death and what lies beyond it.

Unless you’re an al Ghul.

For an al Ghul, death is opt in. Because Ra’s is essentially immortal (which is also a new thing, by the way) and because Talia herself has been repeatedly resurrected, as has her brother Dusan (assuming he’s still in continuity post-Rebirth), to Talia death has no weight to it. No gravitas. It is easily doled out, and just as easily forced into retreat.

Given that, it becomes exceptionally easy to threaten death, even to those she loves, because there’s nothing to say she can’t change her mind and take it back.

Now to be clear, my argument is not that she had the intention of taking it back – she didn’t really intend for Damian to die to begin with for one thing. It’s just that, because of who she is and what she has experienced, Talia would always act with the knowledge that she can choose to endanger someone’s life and think about whether she’s comfortable with the result (their being dead) later.

This is evident in both Ra’s and Talia, each of whom are willing to use death and resurrection as a tool to restructure people they don’t even want dead, as Ra’s attempts to do with Damian and Talia, and as Talia does with Honor Guest.

…as a sidenote can I just say that the Lazarus Pit’s effects are so weird. In some stories it can’t resurrect at all, and in others it can resurrect after decades without a problem. In some it just reduces age, and in some it also heals memories. Here it’s being used to erase memories, which makes no sense since a Pit his how Jason Todd got his memories back. Also, this is the first I’ve ever heard of al Ghuls having especially strong resistance to the Pit’s corrosive effects on personality. Considering it’s just a bunch of chemicals on a ley line, I’m not sure how that would work, but now I’m just imagining Ra’s with a book of Lazarus recipes like, Well, I’m needing one that restores memories today so Ima add an extra pinch of ginko.

ANYWAY.

V. “R” Stands for Redemption

There was a time, a few years back, when Damian had his own series, Robin: Son of Batman. And therein, you see one of the few efforts to explain and redeem Talia’s character. There, while she was still presented as colder and more aggressive than her Classic counterpart, she was still capable of compassion, protectiveness and love.

It was essentially explained as a result of her being cleansed of the toxin that was Ra’s al Ghul’s influence, via having darkness physically removed from her body.

Now, to be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about that particular route – I feel like it would have been more honest to have her resurrection heal the Lazarus damage, for example, but it’s a start. And, in the end, Damian left her with the chance to redeem herself and earn back his and Bruce’s trust.

Aaaand she has failed. Or more precisely, writers have failed to follow up on this thread, and have instead doubled down on her as the evil Dragon Mother. I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure what’s going on with DC’s fixation on evil Asian ninja moms but I’m just going to… pretend that isn’t a thing in order to suggest some paths that could salvage her character.

I’ve seen it said that she’s been too evil for too long to be redeemed, but honestly that’s pretty silly. First of all these are comic books, anyone can be redeemed. The same writer who wreaked havoc on Talia also had Magneto, a Holocaust survivor, going full Nazi on humans, which was incredibly out of character, and Marvel basically fixed it by saying “guess who that wasn’t? Magneto. It wasn’t Magneto.” Technically DC could just Hal Jordan her, or let the rumored upcoming continuity shuffle bring her previous history back. As for the “been this way too long” argument, I mean she was Original Flavor Talia for more than twice as long and that wasn’t too long for DC to flip her entire motivation and personality. Catwoman was a villain for decades, and yet here she is, protecting people, making out with Batman on rooftops and leaving him at the alter for altruistic reasons. Same with Ivy, except for the parts about Batman, soooo… you know….

Anyway. I’m going to work with the assumption that we have to use what we have, and that we’re trying to get her to something like her pre-Morrison personality.

The first thing she would need is the experience of love. Someone to anchor her, who won’t judge her or abandon her even when she’s in a dark mood. Even when she’s showing her pain and her anger. Someone who recognizes how broken she is, but decides to try to help her rather than rejecting her. Someone who, in essence, will do for her what Bruce did for Classic Talia, and what he does for Damian in his flawed way.

Now, I’m a massive Bruce/Talia shipper, no lie. However, I do not think Rebirth Bruce and Talia have the kind of connection that could provide her this essential first need. Someone like Superman or Wonder Woman would probably be a better choice, simply because they have greater warmth of character and a drive toward helping lost souls.

After that, she would need some good old fashioned redemption time. Maybe a miniseries where she goes Xena on the world: a redemption quest. Maybe joining a team like the Outsiders or the Suicide Squad where she can earn her way back from the brink. The Outsiders would be cool, especially, because it would allow Bruce and Damian to monitor her and judge her as she progresses.

…and I mean, from a character perspective that’s all she really needs. From a writing perspective, she needs a writer who will nail down things like where Damian came from without going back to the drug-and-rape well, which was a retcon to begin with and has been retconned out and then back in over and over again. And most importantly, she needs a writer who has the interest in exploring her internal world to the point where they can actually draw these things out of her instead of just ignoring the fridge-horror implications of things like… the way she was raised.

If we could get these things to coincide, then Talia, too, can be saved!

Or we could just reboot the timeline again, whatever.

Anyway, that’s all folks, thanks for reading this far, I have no idea how you did. If you’re interested in this kind of thing, feel free to drop me a line and ask me… whatever, because God knows I have plenty to say about Talia and about comics in general.

In closing, something to remind us of the character we’ve lost.

Until next time!

#talia al ghul #meta #dc comics #dc rebirth #batman #damian wayne

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royal-chandler · 6 years ago

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My Thoughts on Endgame

I usually don’t do this and I’m not very articulate when doing a train of thought but I need to expel all of my feelings.

Pros:

- It was truly a Stevetony event. I loved every moment between them, from Steve being the first to reach Tony when he returned to “That’s my man.” Honestly their moments felt like fanfic at times and my shipper heart couldn’t have been more over the moon with how they were handled. I think that the Russos delivered well with regard to their relationship.

- Oh Tony. I cried. A lot. Death was the ending that I wanted for him but I was also glad that he’d found happiness before. I’ll never be on the Pepper train but Morgan Stark was beyond precious and lovely (like any child of Tony would be anything but). I loved that Tony died as Iron Man because gosh, I’ll say it forever and always, he and the suit are one. His last moments broke my heart just right. I would’ve liked more with he and Rhodey but it was near perfect. However, as happy as I am with Tony’s ending, I look forward to all of the fix-it fic.

- I did not anticipate that Natasha would also die. It was the only true twist to the movie for me. I thought that it fit and was a good callback to “I’ve got red in my ledger” with her so desperately wanting to reverse the snap. And while pretty much everyone was great in this movie, Scarjo was a standout for me. I didn’t anticipate that and it was a pleasant surprise. It was great to see Natasha shine. Although, I didn’t like the extent to which her death mimicked Gamora’s, however-- the musical cue and them going as far to show Natasha lying in the same exact position kind of undermined the scene.

- Iron Dad and Spider-Son. Ugh, these two really did me in. Like the tears were coming as Tony snapped but the incoherent noises unleashed at Peter’s goodbye. I have conflicted feelings on Tony choosing to go away for five years but I’m glad that Peter was his motivation for returning to the compound.

- Carol. Just everything with her. There wasn’t enough. And god, that haircut is an A+.

Cons:

- Thor and Bruce. They each had moments I liked, Thor with Frigga and Bruce’s reaction to Natasha’s death and then being the first to make the snap. Beautiful and genuinely poignant. However, I felt like everything else was a disservice to their characters and sort of silly. I didn’t terribly mind Professor Hulk but I would’ve preferred more gravitas.

- The conclusion of Steve’s arc. It was such a huge letdown for me. I whined about it while the credits rolled, I whined in the car, I whined when my best friend bought me ice-cream to make me happier but I’m still upset. As someone who loves this character--his principles, his ability to withstand, his courage--it just broke my heart in all of the wrong ways. Steve returning to the past is the ONE thing that I did not want to happen but I knew it was going down the minute his picture showed up on Peggy’s desk. Which made no sense to me because I thought Peggy had been happily married by that time; I don’t understand why she’d have that on her desk. Like I know Bruce said the past couldn’t be changed and that instead going back would only create alternate timelines but I don’t know, maybe unreasonably, it still felt selfish and OOC to me and I can’t hang with it. I think this will hurt for a good while. And personal, minor nitpick but I didn’t want Steve to pass the mantle to Sam or Bucky. I know it happens in the comics but Steve Rogers is the Cap of the MCU and I’m pretty unmovable on that.

I don’t know exactly how I feel about this movie and I still need to process but right now, there’s a great energy of negative. What I loved, I LOVED but too much of it didn’t work for me, mainly Steve’s arc and the movie feeling convoluted. And this especially sucks because I bought tickets for a showing tomorrow night as well (past me was so optimistic) but I think I just might get a refund and just not go. I don’t think I want to watch this movie again so soon.

*sigh*

#avengers endgame #endgame spoilers #a4 spoilers #spoilers

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letterboxd · 6 years ago

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Endgame.

“I think audiences are so smart now, so they require to not be fed the same drivel as even 20 minutes ago.” —Robert Downey Jr.

The cast and filmmakers behind the most anticipated release of the year talk to Letterboxd, without actually saying anything specific about the film. (But we don’t mind.) This article contains mild Infinity War spoilers.

Although there are going to be many, many more of them, Avengers: Endgame can’t help but feel like the climax of the grand Marvel movie experiment; the culmination of the shared universe first suggested by a delightful post-credits teaser in 2008’s Iron Man.

Since then, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has come to dominate the modern blockbuster with hit after hit, year after year. Then came last year’s Avengers: Infinity War, with its devastating cliffhanger in which many Marvel protagonists evaporated into dust. That epic act of character disintegration built an anticipation for the follow-up that allowed the filmmakers to apply incredible restraint in the film’s marketing. Indeed, all we really know about Avengers: Endgame is that we don’t know anything.

Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige announced that there would be nothing in the trailers from beyond the first twenty minutes of the film. That is unprecedented in modern blockbusters, which center their campaigns around the major action set-pieces, usually dutifully showcased in teasers and trailers to the point where we complain we’ve already seen the film.

In the modern marketing-saturated film-going environment, to go into a film of this size and not be aware of which direction the story is heading, or what the major action scenes will be, is an almost impossible task.

Feige and co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo are to be commended for using their accumulated powers for good in this regard—not since Gone Girl has a major studio film shown such restraint. Heck, they didn’t even let press see the movie before we sat down with Feige, both Russos and the (currently officially alive) cast members of the film (pretty much the original Avengers team) in downtown Los Angeles this week.

Read on for the low-down on the Avengers’ best Boggle player, Natasha Romanoff’s evolution from “sexy secretary”, and the scene that had Robert Downey Jr. “more shredded than a julienne salad”.

Front row, left to right: Danai Gurira, Jeremy Renner, co-director Anthony Russo, Chris Evans, co-director Joe Russo, Brie Larson and Mark Ruffalo. Back row, left to right: Karen Gillan, Paul Rudd, Scarlett Johansson, Marvel Studios president/producer Kevin Feige, Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle and Chris Hemsworth during Marvel Studios’ ‘Avengers: Endgame’ press conference in Los Angeles.

Letterboxd: Filmmakers are known to tinker with blockbusters until the very last minute, honing in on what audiences respond to in the teaser material. That’s obviously not the case here, since you held back so much in the film’s trailers. How did this lack of advance audience feedback impact the filmmaking process, if at all? Anthony Russo (co-director, the taller brother): Look, at the end of the day, my brother and I, we came to this material because we’re fans. We grew up loving the comics. We came to the MCU already fans of the MCU. So the energy we move on is our own passion and our own excitement, and that’s how we tell stories. We learned long ago that you have to tell stories for yourself. You can’t be thinking about how others might receive them.

So for Joe and me, because we have such an intimate relationship with the material, because we have so many amazing collaborators—starting with Kevin [Feige, producer]—we are able to really fashion the story around what we want to see as fans. How do we surprise ourselves. How do we excite ourselves? How do we challenge ourselves? How do we force ourselves to keep digging deeper and keep exploring this narrative and these characters in ways we never imagined? That’s sort of how we guide ourselves through the process.

And once the film is complete and we put it out into the world, we really have no idea how it is going to be received. Once that complete film is experienced and digested and responded to, I think that’s the moment where we are then filled up with a reaction. But as we’re executing, once we conceive the film and start executing, we’re not really second-guessing what we’re doing. We’re really focused on chasing the initial vision that we had for it.

On how the Russo brothers are feeling now that they are near the end of the journey: Joe Russo (co-director): This is, I think, a really unique experiment in movies, this grand mosaic. Depending on how you count it up, eleven franchises… have been interwoven into one big narrative, and I think a lot of people have invested a lot of heart and soul into the characters. When we take these movies around the world, it’s really heartwarming to see people come up to you and say “hey, I started watching this with my classmates when I was ten years old—now we’re all 21 and we’re all going to go see this together” or “my parents have taken me to every movie” or “my grandfather has taken me to every film”. It’s a real sense of community and sharing in these stories and believing in them. And I think with Endgame, we get the opportunity to finish off one of the grandest experiments in movie history and bring it to, as Kevin said, an epic conclusion. So what we’re hoping for is that people feel satisfied with the conclusion.

‘Avengers: Endgame’ co-directors Joe Russo and Anthony Russo.

On what it’s like to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe at this critical moment: Brie Larson (Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel): I mean, stressful, now that you put it like that. I’ve felt kind of chill. But now I’m scared. So I hope you guys did a good job. I came at just the most magical time I think. To come exactly at this ten-year anniversary, and really, my first introduction to everyone was the ten-year photo, which was a really remarkable and special day. And super surreal and also like not allowed to [be talked about]. So the whole thing has always felt like a dream.

This film will always be personally dear to me because it was my first time playing Captain Marvel. We shot this first. So I had to stumble and try to figure out who this character was with no script for this and no script for Captain Marvel either—and perform for the first time in front of legends. But it was incredible.

As big as it is, it still feels like a bunch of kids. Just like what I was doing over summer break, making movies in my garage. There is still this sense of wonder and play and encouragement—and of course this film deals with some heavy subject matter. So you’re bouncing in between things that feel very deep and serious, and then we’re going off and playing Boggle. Which I am very good at. Just to be clear.

There is no other word I can describe it as other than surreal. And I’m super excited for this to come out. Mostly just so that I can talk about it. I want to be able to talk about my experience, which I haven’t been able to do for a very long time.

On connection to his fellow Avengers: Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner/Hulk): It doesn’t feel like family to me because we all really get along well. There’s not that much drama. It does feel like family. It’s a family that you wish you had in a way. I don’t know if you could tell, but it’s a little bit different press conference than the last time. It has a little bit sort of sadness to it. We’re all talking about like we’re dead. I loved working with these guys. It was great knowing them. They were great Boggle players.

There is something very bittersweet about this moment, because as actors, we’re like vagabonds. We kind of bounce around. We have these intense relationships. And then you don’t see anybody until you get nominated for something or you’re nominated in something and you end up in an award ceremony.

Chris Evans (Steve Rogers/Captain America): What’s that like? Speak for yourself.

MR: Well. But like, this is the closest thing that any of us really have to—unless you’re in several franchises—it’s the closest thing you have to continuity and friendships and watching people grow up and have children and get married and then get divorced and then get remarried.

On how Captain America’s leadership role is affected by the presence of other leaders like Black Panther and Captain Marvel: CE: I think he tends to lean on those people who are of like mind and nature, who kind of are intrinsically selfless. I mean, all the heroes up here have their baked-in-the-cake flaws. And I think a lot of that makes for really good conflict in storytelling. That’s why my favorite stuff in this arc has been my stuff with Downey, because [there is] such a dichotomy between how we approach things. But at the end of the day, our hearts are both in the right places. It provides a lot of great friction. By introducing characters like Captain Marvel and Black Panther, people who also align very similarly to Cap’s nature, it reinforces Cap’s sense of purpose and home. It’s an environment that… feels more natural for him. It’s nice to see the certain pockets where he feels at peace and the certain pockets where he feels his buttons might be getting pushed.

On the evolution of the franchise’s female roles: Scarlett Johansson (Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow): Initially, the character really started as a sort of sexy secretary with a skill-set on the side. Posing as. And we didn’t know, or I certainly didn’t know how the audience would react to the character, my interpretation of the character. And obviously a very beloved character for a long time. Then the next time that we saw her in Avengers, she was sort of one of the boys for better or worse. And that made sense then.

I think the fans and the audiences have really pushed, certainly Marvel, but pushed all the studios and filmmakers to really throw up on the screen what represents what’s going on in the zeitgeist and wanting to see diverse films and casts that represent their own aspirations and how they feel. I feel the character has sort of grown in reaction to that. And the movies have really grown in reaction to that kind of fan encouragement.

I remember when Lizzie [Olsen, Scarlet Witch] signed on. Cobie [Smulders, Agent Maria Hill] was there. We were all clinging to each other… I felt like I had been in this testosterone fest for such a long time, it was so nice to see other female cast members. And then with Brie [Larson] coming on and Karen [Gillan, Nebula from Guardians of the Galaxy] and Danai [Gurira, Okoye from Black Panther]. I’m amongst so many wonderful actors, so many strong actors, and it’s just grown beyond my wildest dreams. I could never have imagined where this would take us. And all of us. It’s been quite a journey.

On how Robert Downey Jr. felt while filming the now-iconic scene in which Spider-Man (Tom Holland) fades away at the end of Infinity War (“Mr Stark, I don’t feel so good”): Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark/Iron Man): I just love the lighting in that scene. I look so shredded. I was more shredded than a julienne salad, man. No. I make a lot of faces. I need some help in the editing. It was one of those moments. “This is the most serious thing that’s happened since you were nine. Now don’t F this up.” And I remember the brothers were there. I think we re-staged it once or twice. Anyway. It was crazy to shoot it. But it was just another day. But then I think seeing it—I happened to see it with this amazing kid, this Scottish kid who couldn’t go to a theater—I saw it with him and his reaction really f’ed me up.

So I think what a lot of us are looking forward to—like Kevin always says—is that it’s a surprising, delightful experience with Endgame. It’s one of those things where you go “Wow, I think we just made a pretty serious choice here”. But I think audiences liked that. I think audiences are so smart now so they require to not be fed the same drivel as even 20 minutes ago. It’s like we need novelty. And I think that what the Russos and Kevin have been able to do that is provide that in spades.

On what’s been special about Chris Hemsworth’s journey with these films: Chris Hemsworth (Thor): Well, just to echo something you were saying before, Anthony, about the first time that the Marvel Universe came into my universe back in Australia: I was sitting there, and I would have been just straight out of high school and watching Iron Man and thinking the same thing. Thinking “Oh my god, imagine. I wish I could be a part of that world”. And then a few years on, getting cast in it as Thor and having the opportunity to embark on this thing, and at the time I thought, was this film even going to make it past DVD? Or make to the cinemas? Or was I going to be re-cast and all those sort of questions.

I think the answer to the question, what made it so special for me was just the different people I was able to work with. From Kenneth Brannagh—that first film was really sort of completely in his hands, and he was basically willing to do whatever it takes and wherever he needed me to go for the character—and then through the films with each director and each different cast member, I would learn something different from them.

And by Ragnarok, I felt like I finally had enough sort of confidence to go “Okay, what is it that I could possibly bring to this?” And then have this great collaboration with Taika [Waititi, director]. We really decided to do something different to see how we could make it unexpected and unique. And then I had been calling Joe and Anthony and saying look, I’ve got this new version of Thor that we’ve just shot. And I want to continue that version. I don’t want to do the old version. And they said we’ve got an even newer version for you.

It’s just about the people that’s made it so special and I think unique each time with any of our characters. The fact that we’re all willing to be open to what new possibilities lie ahead of these franchises and these characters. It’s been a pretty remarkable journey.

‘Avengers: Endgame’ opens in Australia and New Zealand on 24 April, and in UK, US and other regions from 25 April. Reporting by Letterboxd West Coast editor Dominic Corry.

#avengers #mcu #Marvel Studios #ironman #avengers endgame #avengers infinity war #thor #black widow #natasha romanoff #scarlett johansson #letterboxd

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comingupforblair · 6 years ago

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There’s something I see a lot in relation to DC films and their critical opinions and it annoys me so I wanted to comment on it

I should preface this by saying that, while I understand the strong feelings people have on the subject, I am completely and unambiguously opposed to actions such as harassing people off social media, sending death threats or generally acting in a repulsive manner towards critics or fans in any given situation and that includes these films. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s begin...

The history of critics’ opinions (for the purposes of this post, I’ll be using this to refer to professionals, amateurs, bloggers, people with YT channels, etc) on the franchise are well documented so I don’t feel a need to go back over them here but, suffice it to say, it hasn’t been a positive one and fans such as myself have been vocal about calling out what we see as unfair or overly negative reviews, critical opinions and expectations for how the films are expected to improve in the eyes of detractors.

This has been seen as a misplaced move in the eyes of detractors who will say that we should be grateful for the presence of critical opinions in order to encourage the film makers to do better and that any and all blame should be put on the creators themselves.

It’s clear that people critical of these films have a lofty view of their behavior and goals, seeing themselves as compassionate critics who are only acting in the best interest of the films and who would love nothing more than to enjoy the franchise but are unable to and are bravely fighting the good fight for better cinema, however much it hurts them to act as they do.

It’s a nice story.

The problem is that it isn’t true.

Or, at least, it’s not as true as they keep insisting.

If you’ve spent any amount of time among people critical of these films, you have likely noticed that a lot of them are extremely abrasive about it. Personal insults towards the creators and fans, hyperbolic statements about the franchise’s future and the future of DC adaptations in general, unflattering comparisons to Marvel and a tendency to treat the films as something closer to a personal affront than they should are all common and certainly don’t play into the image of reluctant negativity they are so keen to cite when called out.

This isn’t even limited to online trolls or bloggers (more on them later). Respectable publications have joined in. There are articles written on the Guardian, a news site I genuinely respect and frequent, that wouldn’t be out of place on an independent site run by the stereotypical angry nerds we have been seeing too much of recently where Zack Snyder is characterized not as a filmmaker whose work they dislike but as an active detriment to DC who needs to be stopped and others where the films are treated with the usual nonsense.

The common response that people generally have when DCEU fans push back against criticism is to assume that we want a world where no one says anything negative about anything ever and the films are never called out when they make a mistake but that’s not it.

Criticism is necessary. It’s how people are given feedback to improve and I’m not going to say these films don’t have flaws to be called out or that Warner Bros haven’t made mistakes. But there’s a responsibility on the people delivering their criticism to do respectfully and fairly and without indulging in disproportionate harshness and unnecessary cruelty and to do so without being personal and realizing when you overstep as well as acknowledging progress and a lot of people criticizing these films haven’t been doing that over the years.

They still hold those earlier films over the newer ones more to their liking in a manner that suggests they have little, if any, intention of allowing the studio to move on or regarding any genuine improvement with little more than a dismissive, backhanded acknowledgement.

Even people who dislike the films have said they’re put off by just how vicious some of the negativity towards them and Zack Snyder personally has been.

Your criticism may be intended to encourage improvement but that doesn’t spare you from being called out on your execution or behavior in doing so, any more than a film makers’ sincere desire to make a good film means they can’t be criticized if they don’t live up to that goal in your eyes.

There’s also the issue of intent.

I have no doubt that people saying they’re critical because they want the films to improve are sincere about it. But it’s their definition of what would qualify as an improvement that needs to be question and scrutinized far more than it has been.

Many people’s definition of an improvement would involve completely annexing the films entirely and starting over from scratch. Others would be content with them merely getting rid of the ones they personally didn’t like or abandoning the idea entirely and just focusing on films and animation. Others would rather see Disney acquire the characters in the belief that any films they make would be worth the trade off (it wouldn’t be).

Others want the films to completely remove any trace of Zack Snyder’s vision, down to recasting actors still loyal to him as well as seeing the films adopt a tone virtually identical to that of the MCU. Others want to see Bruce Timm or Greg Berlanti put in charge while others are wondering why they didn’t bring Christian Bale or Michael Keaton back.

You can see the issue at hand. Every person saying this is doing so out of a sincere desire to see the films improve and that’s the problem. It’s their definition of what would qualify as an improvement that DCEU fans are so adamantly against.

You can’t just attribute good intentions to your actions and expect to be free from criticism from there on out.

That’s not even getting into how a lot of the criticism doesn’t serve a purpose other than to kick a franchise while it’s already down, to say nothing of how often it’s just blatantly inaccurate, and how many are the usual toxic fans who are just venting their anger at these films being made in a manner that differs from what they would have liked and whose manner of criticizing them is skewed more towards negativity.

I almost forgot about them. For every respectable critic out there, there are a dozen or so who take pleasure in going after these films and have no interest in seeing them improve. They just enjoy giving them shit and doing so in a very cruel and needlessly personal manner. Anyone can be a critic now and a lot of the ones doing so are, to put it bluntly, horrible people.

There’s also the fact that critics, fans and bloggers who have been doing this are being championed, being seen and seeing themselves as the victors in this conflict.

Their words and actions are certainly having an effect and not necessarily a positive one. Films have been drastically altered to better suit the expectations of such critics, directors have left due to the changes, arcs have been abandoned and some actors have left and others may follow due to how the franchise has changed.

Needless to say, fans have not been happy about this and are open about saying as much and have been vocal about blaming those with such intensely negative views for what they see as the loss of the franchise we could have had.

You can counter that they wouldn’t have faced that issue if they had done what was expected of them from the start but that’s besides the point.

If you’re a critic with an audience, wheter it’s writing or running a Youtube channel or whatever, you have power. People listen to you, even if it’s only a few dozen people, and that includes the creators. So it’s on you to use that power responsibly and that’s what a lot of people haven’t been doing in relation to these films so it falls to people like me and other fans to call them out when we see them as not living up to the lofty image and ideals they have outlined and assigned to themselves.

In short, fans are treating critics the same way critics have been treating these films and the fact that they are so against being held to such a standard only proves that they need it.

Those with negative views of the films have seen this and similar claims as fans putting the blame for the state of the franchise on someone other than the creators but really it’s the logical conclusion of the justification so quickly and frequently used of their behavior.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t position yourself as someone whose actions are designed to incur change on a major level with these films and then distance yourself from the negative consequences that arise from your words or the actions you have been calling for, even if you didn’t intend it.

On a side note, one of the themes of BvS, the film that started all this, was how sincerely good intentions can have unintended negative consequences. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.

I wasn’t bullshitting when I said that criticism is necessary and I have no desire to see a world without film critics or where they are only seen as valid if they write what I agree with. I have read and encountered people who didn’t like these films but were still respectful, fair and even-minded about it as well as people who saw potential but felt it wasn’t being lived up to. It is possible to be critical of this franchise without engaging in the behavior I’ve mentioned so many times so I know it’s possible to achieve that which is why I’m annoyed at the behavior I outlined being so commonplace and being dismissed as an unavoidable side effect.

As with fandom, I want film criticism to improve and that will never happen if the people doing all of the stuff I mentioned are just invoking their good intentions as a way to beat away any kind of criticism of their behavior or refusing to ever reflect in a way that is absolutely necessary for improvement.

#dceu #zack snyder #man of steel #batman v superman #Wonder Woman #aquaman #shazam

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