New Teen Titans studies
Someone found this on discord so now I'm sharing it with all of you. Who wants to test their DC character knowledge?
I got 85/100.
The real tragedy of the whole “Batman contingency plans” thing escaping containment into the wider cultural zeitgeist is that it’s become completely divorced from the original context of, you know, the Tower of Babel story-line happening after a beloved member of the Justice League did in fact go mad, become all-powerful, and destroy all of reality.
Which is devastating because it loses so much when you take Hal Jordan out of it! In both adaptations and fan discussions!
Despite only being mentioned by name once in the story, Hal haunts the whole narrative in how unspoken he is. The whole theme of the story is the failure to communicate and how it destroys trust, and an essential part of that is how the whole League won't (and can't) talk about Hal.
When Kyle finally tries to bring him up, Wally shoots him down. He is the forbidden topic at the heart of the League's breakdown of trust!
When the contingency plans plot is removed from the context of Hal's fall from grace, isn't proceeded by a JLA founding member doing what was supposed to be unthinkable, Bruce's actions lose their emotional core. It becomes just "Batman is the coolest and smartest and also a huge untrusting asshole" instead of "Bruce was already on the knife-edge of crippling paranoia regarding his powerful allies, and then one of those same allies started slaughtering people and he couldn't do a thing to stop it, confirming all his worst fears and sending him right over the edge"
You take Bruce's feelings of very personal betrayal out of the equation. He's not operating on just hypotheticals, but fears that were heartrendingly justified!
Bruce claims the reason for his plans on some past mind-control incident, but Clark calls Bruce out on it being an excuse.
Maybe that's how it started, but there's a reason the fail-safes aren't against mind-control and possession. The fail-safes are ways to permanently stop your friends should they willingly or unwillingly become a threat.
And they both know it. They've argued about Hal several times before.
Bruce has a lot of unresolved feelings about Hal. He's still hurting.
The contingency plans are not some cold, clinical necessity. They are the product of pain.
I think all readings and tellings of the Tower of Babel should be followed by the JLA/Spectre story.
It provides the necessary emotional conclusion to the unspoken conflict! Because they finally have to talk about it! They heal the broken trust! Bruce admits how much Hal's betrayal hurt him and his faith in heroes, and gets past it! Instead of letting a former and potential future threat be eliminated as his fail-safes say he should, he invites the threat back, even if he can't guarantee it won't happen again, because he chooses to believe in his friend!
The contingency plans are a cool and interesting concept, but again, you can't just...take Hal out of it. You can't make it about some evil alternate versions, or about Clark. By doing that, you lose the most heartbreaking part of the story. Batman isn't in the right or the wrong, but he's not heartless. He's brokenhearted.
donna troy // king by florence + the machine
What is a mother?
Batgirl (2000) #25 // Batman (1940) #567 // Batgirl (2000) #54 // Batgirl (2000) #49 // DC First: Batgirl/Joker // Batgirl (2000) #52 + Batgirl (2024) #6
barry’s adventures in mapping the multiverse
DC can pry gayace Connor Hawke from my cold, dead fingers
(A Connor and Cass friendship is still amazingly adorable tho, gotta have that wlw and mlm solidarity)
ACTUALLY NVM THERES ONE OTHER CONNER I SHIP CASS WITH
DONT TELL ME YALL WERENT THINKING THE SAME WHEN READING THIS DAMMIT
^this was with Tim driving and Steph taking shot gun. It was a double date and I refuse to hear anything contradictory to that
I will never forgive dc for what they did to Roy. RHATO Roy isn't Roy Harper he just happens to share the same name, that's how different he is. Roy has always been an incredibly important character who grew immensely from when he first appeared to joining the justice league. Even before the end of post-crisis dc was already doing him dirty by killing Lian and having him relapse. RHATO would have been so much better if it had a more accurate Roy (and kory for that matter) who teamed up with Jason cause he could see the similarities between them and wanted to help him just as Dinah helped him. Also Roy should have been the leader of the team as he you know actually led the titans for a while there and has proven himself to be a good leader whilst Jason (at least I think personally) isn't really the leader type.
Roy Harper is an incredibly rich character with a history that spans nearly 80 YEARS and it is a DAMN SHAME that RHATO forced him into a position in which he will either be forever known as a Jason Todd supporting character or be forgotten entirely. The fact of the matter is that RHATO was a badly written book that wrote Roy unacceptably and unremorsefully out of character. The only saving grace was that were good moments within the interpersonal relationships of the characters, and evidently that was enough for people to latch onto the book. It is not a coincidence that most of the book’s avid fans consisted of new readers or Jason stans who either didn’t know anything about Roy to begin with, or just flat out didn’t care about anything other than his relationship in regards to Jason. However, despite being one of seemingly millions of examples of how anything can be popular if it has a shipable ship regardless of quality, the impact that it’s made on a character that hasn’t been an A lister in a long time has been catastrophic. Very few people know or care about Roy outside the context of RHATO and because of the internet, it will never quite be forgotten. And if Roy does in fact die during Heroes in Crisis, I think that not only is this a slap in the face to people who are actually fans of Roy, but is an immense loss to comic book history as a whole. Roy is one of the few characters who has been there since basically the beginning and has endured the test of time. He’s been part of things that literally paved the way for every aspect of the modern comic book industry. I doubt he’ll stay dead forever, but the supporting cast doesn’t usually come back right away, and part of me is afraid that Roy has strayed too far the public eye for editorial to ever really consider him useful again.
they barge into justice league meetings saying they have something very important to show them. and do stuff like this
Marcus To is honestly the biggest TimKon shipper
And of course
Dick and Jason: Why couldn’t he be an understanding father for me 💔
Bruce to Cass in the other room: 3 people died during you 10 minute power nap what are you going to do about it
HSKSJDDHH the worst part is Cass is 100% like "No you're right. This is on me. Ugh I love how much you understand me ❤️" She and Bruce come back into the other room bonding over the shared guilt of not being able to stay awake to fight crime 24 hours a day while Dick and Jason sulk in the corner because look at how he pats her shoulder, he was never that understanding when we messed up 😔.
Side blog dedicated to DC and all their characters.
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