[DC] Scans

[runespoor7]

Posting the links to the scans I posted over at scans_daily in the past two weeks.

One Perfect Moment
Last week was the One Perfect Moment week. Basically, post a moment that you defines and celebrates a character or a relationship, the longest recommended length of the 'moment' being two pages. There were 166 posts in all, many of which being

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[runespoor7]

I'd guessed right! :D

I'm thinking of posting up My Beginning and My Probable End (if only for the scene at the end with Jay in the bed) if I can scan it.

...Okay, I'm pretty sure I never read/heard of this. Please do post! (Or I may have, but I'm beat after the massive link compilation, so maybe I just don't remember.)

Obsidian Age hug is love. I love the Morrison/Waid/Kelly era on JLA because it's so awesome. Good time for this Batman fan. I can't remember who in the fandom summed up Batman's nominating the replacement JLA as 'I love how Batman has no much authority in the hero community and Nightwing is so trusted than when everyone thinks Batman's dead, he can go "The Justice League will be so-and-so, and their leader will be Nightwing" and everyone falls into line'. And there was funny Ollie, so that was good too.

I have issues with how Chuck Dixon tends to write Jasonk, but the tying up will never stop making me happy. That and the flashback in Batman #645 where Alfred says that it sounds like Bruce and Jason were fated to meet and Bruce answers "yes-- his name is Jason" and he's smiling are my go-to places to convince myself that Bruce and Jason are trainwrecky doomed love. Not necessarily in the shippy sense, since the Bats wouldn't understand love and healthy if Leslie did a slideshow on it.

[lipsofpoison]

I use both accounts - one being public for writing, meta, etc and the other being private so I tend to jump between them :3

My Beginning and My Probable End has Jason gets shot by a fake mad hatter and Bruce rushes him to Leslie, where they have this metatastic discussion on the differences between Bruce and Batman and Bruce's relationship with Jason. Jason then wakes up and Bruce tells him he doesn't have to go back out there and Jason says 'are you kidding? we got work to do!' or something to that effect. The one directly before it was posted here. Sound familiar at all?

That is so damn true. I love how central the bats can be in a world full of metas.

Jason was very inconsistant back then too so bad writing I tend to just put down to a continuation of that. I think when it comes to Jason, love as a concept be it from a father to a son or more like lovers has the same effect - he's not experienced with it so he tends to be a bit of a trainwreck. But that's why I love him!

[runespoor7]

Oh riiight, I remember now. I just never call it by its title, for me it's "the one where Jason almost dies and Bruce frets and Leslie says teenaged Bruce was like Jason".

Every time I read that, I compare Leslie rushing forward with a bat swinging to the Leslie in War Games who gets pissed at Batgirl for 'bringing fights into the clinic' as Cass was defending the clinic against the attacks of, er, a gang I think (that and Steph's dying scenes are the only scenes I've read from WG).

I think when it comes to Jason, love as a concept be it from a father to a son or more like lovers has the same effect

Yeah. There's also the fact that Bruce isn't much better as love. When I think of Bruce's relationship with Dick or Jason, the words I always use are "Bruce fell in love". I don't mean that he was sexually attracted, but the strength, the immediacy and the fullness of his feelings resemble that. The expectations he has of them, as well. In both Dick and Jason's case, I think it's returned. Not that I think Dick's aware of it; in every version he was emotionally younger than Jason when he came to the Manor, so his imprinting on Bruce turned out completely differently from Jason's.

I don't think it's so hard to view the love between them as less clear-cut than saying "they're father and son" would imply. Love and roles in the Batman aren't too clearly defined, partly because they're so central to it. There've been stories where Selina was jealous of Gotham as if Gotham was Bruce's Other Woman, and stories where Tim compared arguments between Bruce and Jim to "waiting upstairs when your parents are fighting to see if the divorce's final". Babs was Batgirl and she's Cass' subsitute mother and Batman is Cass' substitute father and Babs and Bruce have the closest thing to an equal relationship Bruce has with any of the kids but they're not quite there, and that's without even going into the question that Cass herself never puts words on what she feels for Bruce.

That's one thing I'm fascinated about in the Batfamily. Identity not-porn.

Wow, that was rambly.

[lipsofpoison]

I try not to read too much of War Games. Angries up the blood.

I think the attraction is one of collection; he's collecting them into the family. The raw immediacy that is Jason, the graceful enthusiasm that is Dick, the calculated intelligence that is Tim and the bright determination that is Steph all make up Robin. As much as I hate to admit it, I can see the planning inventor being Damian fitting into Robin that way if it's done right. That's a big if and I never thought I'd say it. As for the Batgirls, again, it feels like collection: Babs is bright, yet cynical, a mother and sister, mentor and student all in one person. This is something Cass shares, though she has also has an ambiguity and determination to push her.

I think identity is probably intense because there are more than one person in play. Things like Matches Malone, Red Hood, Nightwing, Oracle and so on are all at core, their original selves but create layer upon layer which becomes identity. I think Jason, for instance, if you stripped him down from Red Hood, you'd probably go Red Hood to Jason Todd, Street Kid easier than you could go Red Hood to Robin II. Again, with Babs, I think she'd find it easier to associate Babara Gordon, former librarian with Oracle than it would be Batgirl but that doesn't mean at the core, that's not a huge part of their identity.

I think their identities are likely both barriers and links; something that protects them (say, if Batman and Robin are fighting, does that mean Bruce and Tim necessarily are and vice versa?) and connects them - Batman need a Robin, but it may be more telling to say he needs the Robins, because each of them make up a part of who and what Robin has become.

Gotham is chaos and I think chaos can be a major player in Batman's life. It's the barrier between Batman and Bruce - Bruce lost his parents to the chaos and became Batman. In a way, because of that, it will always be a part of him in a way no person ever can be and sometimes, I think ythat's what he saw in Jason - Gotham's chaos touching someone as deeply as it has him. If he had have been thinking more clearly when it came to Steph, he may well have thought that about her too.

There's so many layers of fathers, children, siblings, even cousins if you bring in people like the Titans into it and so many identities that have both nothing and everything to do with eachother. To me, those layers are interesting and I love exploring them.

Wow, you thought you rambled!