Duke's Eyes Glow Brighter Than Most Flashlight. His Teeth Glow Faintly Enough To See Them In The Dark

wails in duke thomas fan

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FAQ | Prompt Submissions

Welcome to Duke Thomas Week 2025. This is a fan event focused on Duke Thomas / The Signal from DC Comics. It will run from July 21st to July 25th 2025. All types of fan-works are welcome and we're excited to see what you'll make!

Duke Thomas/Signal!

(request by @the-badass-penguin )

bonus crappy sketches/studies from last year

THE most underrated duke fit ever

being keeping a hold of this post for a while and finally got to post it 🙏

+close ups

Do you think when Duke was starting out as the Signal and got his bike Gothamites gave it a dumb nickname? Like how Batman has his batmobile, Duke has a signalcycle.

Genuinely just curious, no hate or anything. Honestly I don't fully understand what is going on with him.

Duke Thomas Headcanons!!! pt 1/??

Stole this idea from @lordbasilsnek because I had no idea what to post on here at first, so go check them out cuz their headcanons are pretty cool too.

He is banned from the Batkids yearly hide and seek game due to his powers. He and Cass (Who was banned simply because she was too good) decide to be commentators. Duke does most of the talking.

After his parents were jokerfied, Duke learned how to braid his own hair. Once he moved in with Bruce he got the chance to grow out his hair. It throws half the batkids off when the morning after their patrol instead of the afro he's had for the past 7 months he has cornrows with beads in colors he and Cass picked out the day before.

Almost monthly Duke and Jason argue which side of gotham has the best pizza. Jason's is some shitty crime alley pizza place that gave him a free slice every now and again. Duke's is near his parents apartment. It's black owned. Its the greasiest shit you will ever put near your mouth. His mom hated how unhealthy it was. He and his old friends would eat there every Saturday afternoon anyways. These arguments are one hair away from getting physical because both of them are too fucking stubborn to admit they can both be right.

Random Duke Thomas Headcannons pt 2

I think Duke and Bao (Clownhunter) would be childhood friends.

Bao and Duke both grew up in the Narrows. I imagine Duke meet him at Bao's parents pho restaurant and dragged him off to play together.

The two would run through the steets, play tag with the other Narrows kids, do their homework, which at that age was mostly just colouring in, in a cornor seat at the restaurant.

When Zero City happened, Bao's family would move in to the apparentment block with Duke's family and others. It was that point when their relationship chnaged from friends to brothers.

They were attched to each other. Duke took it upon himself to be the older brother (dispite only being a year older). He would tell Bao to do riddle while he went out to get fish, no matter how much the other protested (or how much he was scolded when he got home). Bao use to pretend to be more scared than he really was so he could stay with Duke, hoping to protect him a bit.

So their bond grows, as they start middle school they don't hang out as much being in different grade but are always together at lunch. They get into petty fights, play video games together, were general hooligan(/aff) on the streets.

Then Bao's parents we killed by Joker. He started living with his aunt and uncle, Duke and his parents would bring food around, mostly as an excuse for Duke to just sit with him. In the grief, Bao closed himself off, stopped responding to Duke's messges, stopped going to school, stopped leaving the house.

Duke tried to keep contacting him, he would show up at his house, force Bao to sit with him and do his online school homwork while Duke did his, like when they were kids in the restaurant. That stopped by Joker got Duke's parents too.

Duke got washed away in the foster system, in being Robin, in becoming Lark and later Signal, in joining the Outsiders.

The Joker War started, Bao became Clownhunter, was washed away in his bew found duty to finally stop the Koker how Batman never could.

They almost naturally just stopped talking.

Until, while waiting for Jay to be able to take custody of him, Bruce sent him to Gotham Academy.

There was Bao again. The first thing they did was fight. They were both mad at each other for abandoneding the other. A few hours later they made up. Dispite not talking for so long, they were best friends, more than that, brothers.

They caught each other up if their lives, keeping the vigilante business out. They started messaging each other regularly. Duke would fight the people who builied Bao, the two spending a few afternoons in detention because of it. They would just sit with each other, happy to be in each others space.

Bao joined Batman incorporated which caused Clownhunter and The Signal to finally meet.

After taking down Professor Pyg's operation, some of the Batkids, lncluding Signal, arrived for clean up. Clowerhunter knew about the Signal, he was Gotham's hero. Signal knew about Clownhunter, he'd read the file Batman had on him. When they saw each other they immediately understood who was under the mask.

There wasn't a chance to talk that night, they didn't want to reveal each others identifies to the other vigilante's and Ghostmaker had an argument with Nightwing, quickly ending Batman Incorporated's time in Gotham.

They meet the next night, in costume, on the roof of their old apprentment building. Once they shared during Zero Year. Not much was said, Duke didn't mention the people Bao had killed, Bao didn't mention him joining the Batfamily. However, they understood each other mor now. Not much needed to be said. Duke gave him a Signal beacon, a promise to help if Bao ever needed. Bao gave the same sentiment. The two parted ways again.

They knew at that point they were closer than ever, dispite being so far apart. They had their own paths to follow but they felt more secure now knowing they had family in the hero community who will help them in any way.

I don't really like the debate about Duke Thomas on if he's the "normal one" or "just as crazy" as his siblings because it's based on a false dichotomy that limits Duke's characterization in a fandom that already doesn't really know where to place him. The long story short is that Duke is like his siblings which is to say he does whatever based off of his sense of morality and he often has no scale of normal human behavior.

I'm pretty sure that the idea of him as the normal one comes from Wayne Family Adventures. (Though if this predates it in fandom please let me know). WFA chooses to play into his newness to give insights into the dynamics of Wayne manor and the larger batfamily.

I don't necessarily think this is a bad choice. I'm pretty giving to adaptations because it's hard to summarize 80+ years of comics into an easily digestible form. However, it was clearly written by a team who didn't have much insight on what to do with Duke outside of that, so his newness and uncertainty become his characterization and by extension him being the "regular one" in the family. The fandom that hasn't engaged with Duke outside of WFA run with that.

Which leads to jokes, skits, and fics where Duke is not only misrepresented but underrepresented. In a family filled with weird people with distinct dynamics what's the new, normal guy to do but sometimes stand in a corner and throw in a responsible one liner.

As a response people get frustrated with Duke's lack of inclusion in fics, skits, and jokes, so they bring up all the things that prove he's just as wild as his siblings (such as getting shot and thinking it's cool or jumping out of a cop car though my personal favorite is when he breaks into the iceberg lounge). However, without context this still isn't Duke. He doesn't just do insane things for the response he has a very clear characterization.

Duke is a child genius who has a huge problem with authority, primarily motivated by helping his community (though in the time between his parents disappearance and goign to live with Bruce he is a bit of an adrenaline junkie as a coping mechanism).

So, if we revisit some of the actions listed above:

Duke gets shot and thinks it's cool: This is Duke in his peak adrenaline junkie time, when he's riding the high of We Are Robin and all the potential negative consequences of superherodom haven't settled in yet. (This is also the period of time when he's getting into fights and is a bit of a playboy).

Duke jumps out of a cop car: This is Duke with his problem of authority (particularly cops) especially when they are trying to stop him from doing what he thinks is right. In this case, stopping him from We Are Robin duties. (This is also why he sneaks out of his foster homes looking for his parents).

Breaking into the iceberg lounge: This is peak Duke. It's him using his genius intellect to crack open a case and because he refuses to ignore it when he can help chasing the lead himself. It's also a little bit his adrenaline junkie sense as he's absolutely more reckless when there's a lot of external pressures.

TLDR: Duke is not the normal one. He's also not just a series of his wildest actions. He's a 16 year old, who wants to help the world and his own way of going about that, wether that's within or outside of our conception of normal behavior.